superzoom

A superzoom is a camera lens with a very large focal-length range, designed to cover both wide-angle and telephoto perspectives in a single lens. In practice, the term is most often applied to compact cameras and bridge cameras that offer substantial optical zooms, typically around 10x or greater.

These lenses provide versatility and convenience for travel, street photography, wildlife, and everyday subjects, allowing users to frame landscapes, portraits, and distant action without changing lenses. Common examples include zoom ranges such as 18-200mm or 28-300mm ranges on compact cameras.

Optical characteristics: a wide zoom range usually comes with compromises in brightness and sharpness, particularly at the extremes; many superzooms use smaller maximum apertures at long focal lengths. They typically include optical image stabilization and a minimum focusing distance that varies with focal length, enabling close-ups at some settings but not true macro performance.

Tradeoffs: size, weight, and cost are often higher than standard compact lenses but lower than multiple interchangeable lenses. Image quality can be good for everyday photography but may show more distortion, color fringing, and vignetting compared with prime or standard zoom lenses. Autofocus can be slower in low light and at long focal lengths.

Notable examples and brands: Canon PowerShot SX530 HS, Canon PowerShot SX70 HS; Nikon Coolpix P900 and P1000; Panasonic Lumix FZ70, FZ82; Sony Cyber-shot HX-series and RX-series; these devices are commonly marketed as superzoom or ultra-zoom.