I've used this camera for a couple of weeks now (got it mid-January '04) and feel I've gotten to know it fairly well after taking about 700 photos during our Disney World trip. I bought this camera primarily for the image stabilized 12x Zoom lens (to get good shots of the animals in Animal Kingdom) and the 4 megapixel capture (for printing the occasional 8x10)and could not be happier with those features.

The camera gives you plenty of manual controls, and gives you assistance when using those manual controls. For instance, when using the manual focus, the camera enlarges the focus area on the view screen so you can see more clearly the area your trying to focus on. Or when manually setting the shutter speed, the camera will warn you if the shutter speed is too fast for the amount of light present by coloring the shutter speed numbers red.

The manual controls I used most were: Shutter speed, spot/area AF, and white balance. I found that overriding the default settings improved the photo quality a fair amount over the default settings, especially in low light situations, or situations with mixed lighting.

Did I mention how great the 12x lens combined with image stabilization is? I took pictures without a tripod of animals that were a good 50 yards away and they filled the screen with no bluriness. I had evaluated a cheaper 10x zoom camera without image stabilization and found that at 10x I could not hold the camera steady enough to get a picture. The image stabilization in the FZ10 really helps.

The camera had several features that I found useful once I got the basics of taking pictures down.
o EVF viewfinder in addition to screen. A more 'natural' way to set up a picture and really saves on batteries.
o movies with sound, even though only 320x240. This turned out to be a good way to capture parades at night. My children also like watching themselves and the image stabilization reduces the amount of jerkiness that many digital camera movies have.
o stop-motion animation. I'm really surprised at how much fun this is. My children love creating setups for small stop motion movies.

There are a couple of things to watch out for with the camera
1) This is not a simple point and shoot camera. Getting the most out of this camera requires learning the manual controls, especially for indoor shooting
2) There is a fair amount of noise in dark colors if the shot is underexposed. The area exposure setting tends to underexpose dark areas when shooting indoors. Almost all of this can be fixed by software (Noise Ninja) after the photos are loaded onto your computer or by using spot exposure for indoor shooting.

Recommended: Yes

Amount Paid (US$): 520
This Camera is a Good Choice if You Want Something... Flexible Enough for Enthusiasts