I'm selling my SLR, as i'm getting sick of carting it around on walks, days out etc.
Going for the Panasonic Travel Zoom 7, TZ7 (also known as ZS3 in USA)
£200, massive 12x optical zoom, great pics and HD video, 10.1 mp so not going silly but it has a fantastic lens. For £200 its a no brainer.
Comes top in the ultra zoom compact review too
http://www.dpreview.com/reviews/q209grouplongzoom/
The pics speak for themselves.
ISO 1600 (which is usually very grainy in low light!!!)
Check out the reviews
http://www.amazon.co.uk/product-revi...owViewpoints=0
heres a sample of one >>>
"To get the best photos, you obviously need an SLR and some great lenses. Hmm. Well, I have an SLR and some great lenses, but I tend to leave them at home when I go on a trip.
So I bought this TZ7 to take with me when I can't be bothered to take my SLR, which is nearly all the time. The TZ7 is small enough to go in a jacket pocket, or to hang unobtrusively from your belt. But is it good enough for anyone used to the quality of an SLR?
For me it is good enough, as long as you adjust your expectations. Which you have to do when you have such a small camera with a 25 to 300 zoom. Try getting a 25 to 300 zoom for an SLR! Even more amazing is that it's a very decently sharp lens. It's a little bit less than razor sharp at the extremes of the zoom range, but almost all my shots came out nice and sharp (but not too sharp, meaning the camera isn't over-processing things).
So the lens is good, and since the lens is the TZ7's party piece, that's a good thing.
Next on the list of killer features is HD video. This is 720p video, not `full' HD, but what do you expect? The great thing is that you can use the optical zoom while taking video, which is rare in these cameras. It zooms slowly so the noise of the zoom isn't picked up by the microphone but works very well. You get stereo sound too, and the quality of the sound is way ahead of any camera like this I've tried before."