I just bought a Lumix, Panasonic 7 mega pix with 10x optical zoom. Real cool but the real deal is it will zoom to 50x digital. You can spot an ant on the top of the chimney if you hold the camera still enough, after typing till 11 pm with a few scotch's that's not in the cards in the AM but real good camera. DMC-tz3 about 300.00
Got it at Costco