I love my Lumix dmc-fz5 (the current, slightly more exciting version is the fx8 a review of which can be found here: http://tinyurl.com/2cegau
It works very well as a point and shoot camera with a great zoom, which if you like taking pictures from a distance either because you can't get closer - you spotted the scene down the block, you don't want to startle the wildlife/child, you like architectural details three stories up - is very useful. I also like it because it is very light weight for it's capacity but is large enough to hold onto easily and it has really good motion control, all of which make my otherwise rather shaky grip still permit clear pictures.
Also it uses SD cards for memory and those a)readily available b) have gotten damn cheap - you can get a 2 GB for under $20 and it will hold several hundred pictures easily.
If you eventually start feeling more adventurous it even has some ability to add attachments like filters without the weight/expense/full flexibily of a dslr.
Camera rec
It works very well as a point and shoot camera with a great zoom, which if you like taking pictures from a distance either because you can't get closer - you spotted the scene down the block, you don't want to startle the wildlife/child, you like architectural details three stories up - is very useful. I also like it because it is very light weight for it's capacity but is large enough to hold onto easily and it has really good motion control, all of which make my otherwise rather shaky grip still permit clear pictures.
Also it uses SD cards for memory and those a)readily available b) have gotten damn cheap - you can get a 2 GB for under $20 and it will hold several hundred pictures easily.
If you eventually start feeling more adventurous it even has some ability to add attachments like filters without the weight/expense/full flexibily of a dslr.
If you want to get a sense of the image quality here is the link to the pictures I took with mine in the UK this spring: http://flickr.com/photos/lapillus/collections/72157600041781939/ just click on any of the collections and browse.