Larry wrote:
I thought I would post something germain to the topic of this
newsgroup.

Thanks, Larry.

Between myself and my wife the ZLRs we have are the Nikon Coolpix 5700 and
8400, and the Panasonic FZ20. We both started with Nikon, a Coolpix 900
in my case and the 990 for my wife.

- the 5700 has been my main camera for a couple of years. I do like the
extended telephoto, and having the electronic reflex to the EVF allowed a
much better taking posture for me of the camera to the face rather than at
arm's length. These days I need reading glasses, so changing glasses just
to take a photo eliminated that, and provided a much better view in
sunlight. OK, so there are some low-light issues, but taking three photos
to get one good one if needed costs nothing.

- when my wife needed a long zoom camera, image stabilisation had just
appeared. We looked at the various offerings and concluded that the
Panasonic FZ20 was the best value. The CF cards and AA batteries of the
Canon S1 IS would have fitted in better with our existing kit, by Cecilia
wanted a step up from the 3MP of the Nikon 990 to the 5MP of the
Panasonic. The camera hasn't been used a lot in anger as yet, but has
produced some good pictures. The image stabilisation works very well, and
the manual focussing is excellent too.

- The Nikon 8400 has 24mm wide-angle built in. I analysed the pictures I
took with the 5700 on a trip to Prague, and found that many were at the
wide-angle end. I had a tiny 24mm adapter for the Coolpix 990, but I
didn't want the bulk of the equivalent adapter for the 5700. The flash
coverage on the 8400 is excellent, making it an excellent camera for
indoors.

So today, on a short trip I take the Nikon 8400 and Cecilia takes her
Panasonic FZ20. I don't know what I will do on longer trips where I want
the telephoto of my 5700 and the wide-angle of the 8400. I may even take
both!

Cheers,
David