Best Extended Zoom

Extended zooms, commonly known as superzooms, are the closest to all-in-one cameras as you can get, with enormous zoom ranges and stacked feature sets; though they're really just point-and-shoots on steroids, they offer out-of-the-box versatility that similarly priced dSLRs can't approach. Though it was released in 2010 and leaves plenty of room for improvement, the Panasonic FZ100 remains the best superzoom out there. It sports an ample 25-600mm (24x) lens with a handy 3-inch articulating LCD, hi-res electronic viewfinder, solid 1080i video mode, and speedy all-around performance including an 11fps burst mode. Overall image quality is solid, though JPEGs can look soft at large sizes. Thankfully, it's one of the few superzooms to support RAW capture, so the blemishes can be worked out in post-processing. No, it isn't a perfect package, but we haven't seen any compelling reasons to believe that any new models are any better, all things considered. There are some worthy options, though. The Nikon P500 is impressive mostly for its lens, sporting a class-leading 36x zoom range, starting at a class-leading 22.5mm. While reviews have knocked its image stabilization (but think of that telephoto!) and out-moded interface, its out-of-camera image quality is quite good, even in poor lighting. And for the best possible image quality, there's no better option than the Fujifilm HS20EXR. Unfortunately, reviews indicate that it's hampered by design issues, a wonky interface, and amateurish video mode. And if you really must fall into the budget-superzoom trap, lean toward the Nikon L120, the only cheap superzoom that doesn't feel like a toy.