We currently have a 5 year old Samsung 4 Megapixel point and shoot.
It takes pretty good pics for printing 4x6's with, but it's SLOW to use and seems like it takes 2 secs for the shutter release.
I'm not really into photography, but it's always interested me. I haven't really decided if we should just get another point-and-shoot or if I should get something more full featured, like one of those in-between P&S/DSLR "bridge" cameras - and perhaps become more of a hobbyist and learn about the manual settings, etc. to get the most out of my pics. DSLR sized cameras are too big and bulky to consider for us.
I really really want more zoom, and a GOOD 720p movie recording mode. Good audio is a must, and stereo audio would be nice, but not required. Of course great pictures are important too A good "automatic" mode is important for my wife too.
Budget: around $250-350 or so.
Seems that the Canon's won't let you optically zoom in movie mode, that's something I want so they are out.
I think I've narrowed it down to another point-n-shoot, or perhaps a "bridge superzoom" like the Panasonic Lumix FZ28.
The ONLY two things holding me back from buying that FZ28 right now are the size (bigger then we are used to) and the fact that SOME people say the audio isn't that great in reviews. We went to a Ritz camera and the wife says it wasn't too big, but maybe too big for her purse. The lower cost of this awesome camera ($300) makes it hard to resist, but I fear we won't take it everyplace like we do the current smaller Samsung because it's bigger, needs to be kept in a special case...etc, and end up just taking pictures less often as a result. This (and the other panny below) have been lauded for there great automatic modes, which is great. Other then those two cons this camera seems pretty amazing.
The other frontrunner is the DMC-ZS3, with it's smaller P&S size, 720p movies with stereo audio (with a wind reduction mode I read someplace)? That looks really awesome - but it might be a little too expensive for us. I love how you can turn down the megapixels to get more effective zoom. I guess the "AVCHD Lite" format is brand new and might be problematic for use in vide editing apps, but it can do MPEG video too.
FZ28:
http://www.dpreview.com/news/0807/08072 ... icfz28.asp
http://www.letsgodigital.org/en/camera/ ... age_9.html
ZS3:
http://cnettv.cnet.com/2001-1_53-50005390.html
http://www.digitalcamerareview.com/defa ... +lumix+zs3
Anyone have any experience with either camera or have any other thoughts to share?