I have a Panasonic FZ50. Nice. 12X zoom, 10 mp, IS. All the manual settings, raw. Nice!
Much easier to carry around than a DSLR.
However, I wanted a compact camera thats even smaller that I could carry around in my shirt or jacket pocket and keep in the console of my car (you know what I mean). So I searched and researched for weeks and finally settled on a Canon A720IS (8mp, 6X, IS, in case your wondering). Just got it a couple of days ago, and just took my first pictures with it. Nothing special mind you,
just test shots, but I just had to share.
Talk about the Rule of Thirds! Anyway, this is powerplant near my house.
This is the same plant, but zoomed in some (but not all the way). I PP'd this one.
Now, this is a 100% crop of the above photo,
no PP, right out of the camera. The detail is amazing. You can see the knots on the poles and the bolts holding the parts together. I'm really impressed with this "P&S"!
The other thing I'm impressed with is how close it focuses, about 1/2" from the lens. This is another totally unprocessed, full frame image of a dime. This was hand held without flash and with just room lights at 1/20th of a second, so that IS was working overtime. Sorry for the shadow, but this was just a test and that lens was right on top of that dime.
Overall, I'm glad I got it. "Compact" cameras have sure come a long way lately.