I have the Z3, actually mu cousin has it. But you can ask anything about that camera, becouse he gave it to me few months ago when he got the DSLR. Don't know about the Canon tho..

Well first it has a very small LCD (1.5"),very high ISO noise (ISO200), but it is good for daylight or at night with flash.Want to know something specific?.

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If you can find a good offer on the Panasonic LUMIX DMC-FZ20, go for it!.

You get a lot of bang for the bucks, and the FZ20 is from BEFORE Matshushita (Panasonics mother-company that produces their CCDs) got nuts with MPixels and noise..

The Leica lens is truly great, and FZ20 is in all aspects, a very nice camera - with a standard ISO shoe mount..

Do NOT buy the Canon S1 IS. You will feel it's WAY too sluggish to autofocus. The S2 IS and the newer S3 IS, performs far better - well, almost all cameras performs better than the S1 IS, which is both slow and has tendencies to hunt..

The Sony H2 and H5 should also begin to show up on the 2nd hand market, and they're also great offers. Not that sharp lenses as the Panasonic, but nevertheless, they're great..

Olympus' elder ultrazooms, such as the 7xxUZ-series, are too soft in my opinion - they lenses are not great either..

The FujiFilm S6xxx and S9xxx-series are both great; with lenses on the soft side, but delivers the best high-ISO quality you will see in ultrazooms. They don't have imagestabilizer, but with high-ISO quality like that, who cares..

Http://www.fotostart.dk << tutorials, guides etc...

And yeah I would suggest the Panasonic FZ-20 too, after handling Z3 in my hands... And teh lens have a constant aperture in the whole range on the Pana... Really worth the buck!.

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Thanks to everyone who has replied today. It is 5.30 am in Sydney (have the flu and am fixing my boys cricket pants for today' s match) and am wondering if sometime soon we will be able to photograph them with a great optical lens. I have just checked my bid on the Lumix FZ 20 and it has not gone to AUD 112.00. There are 10 hours to go and as usual the fierce bidding will start about now..

Thanks a lot for all the good advice. I had better start a search on the other cameras you guys mentioned because great offers come on the net every day.Cheers B.BAK..

Hi, thanks for the reply. It is 5.30 am in Sydney and in a little while we will have to go off to take the boys to cricket. And that is what prompted us to look into the 2nd hand camera market. We are used to SLRs (film) and only have a little Fuji digital. Any camera we get will have to be good taking shots at cricket and soccer matches but also the odd concert or indoor school event. We also do lots of portrait shots and I think the DiMage Z3 is supposed to be great with that.



So if you can spare the time and have any ideas on my "sporting " questions I'd love to hear them. But now I shall finish fixing my kids cricket uniforms get a bit of shuteye before the matches this morning.Cheers.BAK..

Sorry to hijack the thread, but....

I'm looking for basically the same thing (10+ zoom) but looking at more current models, and wonder what folks might suggest..

I looked at the Canon S5, but I think it may be a little bulkier than I would like. I do like the flash hot shoe though for additional indoor lighting... Also considering the Panasonic TZ2/3, definitely smaller, but I would probably like to have a little more manual control capability and would really prefer something that opperates on AA batteries... I'm curious about the upcoming Canon SX100. Any predictions on how it will fare? Any guess as to when we might see some reviews? Other small super-zoom cameras I should consider?.

Thanks!!..

Hi, good idea to ask. The more opinions the better.BAK..

The problem with most of the superzoom compacts is they don't go beyond 35mm equivlant so wide angle shots at parties etc mean you just can't get far enough back to include everyone in the photo - unless you get an add-on wide angle lens converter which means more equipment and cost..

The new 18x superzooms are going down to 28mm which is really useful. Olympus 550 seems to be a bit too compromised, but the new Panasonic FZ18 is making waves. Fuji also have one that isn't out yet, 8000 and takes AA batteries, but hopefully better than the Olympus..

As an alternative you could consider a dSLR plus 18-200 or 18-250 lens.The new Tamron 18-250 is really very good, and Pentax/Samsung and Sony have built-in antishake sensors for you. There was a Pentax I think K100D that also used AA batteries...

Hi, thanksfor the advice. Justa few hours age we won a bid on the Konica Minolta Z3 (12x optical). We couldn't really afford anything much newer and after much consideration decided to go for this one. I think eventually we will go back to SLR because we have a few film SLRs. Cheers,BAK..