Nerd alert. Each pixel in your camera receives light and "fires" as a certain amount of a color (red, green, blue are standard). Sometimes, pixels get confused for one reason or another and fire the wrong amount. That's noise. It shows up in your picture as a pixel that's obviously the wrong color; but since the pixels are small, it just looks "grainy." Think of it as the visual version of the "hiss" that we all loved about cassette tapes. Noise-filtering software, either in-camera or in Photoshop, smooths over the noise by identifying pixels that are obviously not the same color as their neighbors and replacing them with the "right" color. The plus side is that the noise goes away; the minus side is that detail goes away, too. DSLR's have larger sensor sizes (15x22mm up to 24x36mm for the whole sensor), and non-DSLR's have smaller sensor sizes. DSLR pixels are therefore larger and thus less likely to be confused. My Lumix has a pretty small sensor (5x7mm for the whole sensor, 1/9 of the area of the smallest DSLR). The up side of that is that it's easy to give a small sensor a large zoom with a small lens. Hence, 12x zoom is quite doable. The down side is that the small sensor is relatively noisy, and in low-light settings, the noise gets pretty bad. I figured that I could live with noise in low light, since most of my subjects only pose in sunshine. And mostly, I was right. Occasionally, though, I wish I could get a good, detailed shot of a Satyr in the woods without having to resort to a flash. Jeff

We have a Nikon D40X, which has been discontinued in favor of the D60. You know you can't beat a DSLR. Not only is the picture quality amazing at the fastest iso settings, there is absolutely no delay when you take a picture. As a matter of fact, if sports are important to you, 3 frames a second in continuous mode is what you'll want. It delivers. It's also nice to be able to change lenses. I look at it as upgradeable. There is a drawback, size. Because of the size and weight of the camera we actually just bought a compact to supplement. We use the compact for everyday type events and the Nikon for the bigger ones (as long as I'm the one carrying it around). Okay, why'd I tell you all that when your looking for a compact? Because our compact is an Olympus Stylus 1010 and the picture quality rivals the Nikon. Both are 10 megapixel cameras (actually the Olympus is 10.1). Of course we can do much more with the Nikon but the Olympus is much more convenient when traveling or just taking everyday shots. The Olympus cost us $400 with extended warranty, 2x 2gig xD memory chips, and bag. You can get a Nikon D60 for about $650 is you look hard enough. And D40X for a little less than that. Either one is under 4 digits. If you haven't already, take a look at the Olympus. Klaa2

Read the review at Steve's Digicams (link below). This is a very nice camera with a "super" 12x zoom. The biggest complaint you're going to hear about this camera is that it's noisy in the mid and upper ISO range. Noise is a fact of life for digital cameras just like grain was a fact of life for film. Shoot ISO 800 speed film and get grainy pictures. The noise problem worsens as the camera sensors get smaller and ramp up the number of megapixels. Smaller sensors make for less expensive cameras in a couple ways so the marketplace dictates that we get noisy cameras. If you're making 4x6, 5x7 and occasional 8x10 prints you're not going to see the noise. Just like with film: a 4x6 print from an ISO 800 color negative looks pretty good. There are sample photos taken with the FZ7 on Steve's review page -- look at a couple of them and ask yourself if you're seeing a lot of disturbing noise. The 12x zoom is extreme and you're going to have to expect some compromise to get that feature. This could show up as some loss of quality, maybe a little soft in the corners or less that stelar MACRO performance. Again look at the samples on Steve's website. Because of the 12X zoom this camera is equipped with image satbilization. Panasonic's reputation for image stabilization is good and it's a real advantage in this camera. I've worked with a couple of this camera's predecessors and found them to be better than the average camera in their class. I've made 16x20 inch prints from Lumix images that rivaled results from low end DSLRs. For the money it's a very good buy. Joe Here is a link that might be useful: review

Have fun with it! I really enjoy having a camera both as a recording device for my own records and to share the garden with others. I love the flexibility that a digital camera allows since no need to worry about taking too many photos - I can just delete the ones that didn't turn out well.