The P5000 is much better value than the LX2. Especially if it is going to be your only camera (as against a supplement to an SLR). The A640 is good value for money, but not well built and inferior image quality, by comparison (the A630 is cheaper still and at least as good as the A640)...

There are no manual controls for aperture & shutter speeds on the tz3....too bad...if there were it'd be ideal for me . Will you be keeping the tz1 - going from using a 10x zoom camera back to 3 or 4x is quite a change - I know I'd miss it..

The f31fd is nice - small, great for social & low light situations, doesn't do full manual control but does have aperture & shutter priority which is fun..

The lx2 will give you 28mm wide angle, the 16:9 aspect ratio sensor & screen, OIS, a super sharp lens, and extended optical zoom (panasonic thing) which is nice for extra reach (but you have to reduce the resolution a notch). Since you already own the tz1 - you are probably aware of the noise issues w/ pannys. If it doesn't bother you now - I'd say go w/ the lx2..

I guess it depends on what features you want & what type of shooting conditions you'll typically face. The lx2 would be my top pick for creativity, however if you're going to use it mostly indoors/low-light situations - I'd consider the f31fd instead..

I haven't used the Nikon or Canon's that you've mentioned. If I were you - I'd go to a store & take these for a test drive to narrow down the list!! You can do a ton of reading here but nothing matches trying them out & holding them in your hands. At least that's been my experience. Good luck!..

I can't comment on the others you mention, but the F41fd, while being an excellent little, carry-anywhere camera, has no manual mode, just Av and Tv with 2 stops of exposure compensation. It is certainly the best P&S type camera as far as low light/high ISO performance is concerned, but when I want full manual control I reach for a dSLR..

Brian A...

It really depends on what you want to do with the camera. If you want a wide angle lens and for me, that's now an absolute then your choice becomes pretty restricted. If you can live with a lens that starts in the thirties, then there is a wide choice..

I have an LX2, A620 (similar to the A640) and have used the F31fd. The LX2 is a joy to use, extremely adjustable and small, exposure is usually spot on. The A620 is similarly adjustable but a bit clunky size wise, the F31fd is left behind in the area of adjustability. Image quality from the A620 thrashes that of the LX2 with the F31fd somewhere in between, probably closer to the A620 but has much better performance above iso100 than either the LX2 or A620..

From what I have seen, the TZ3 has all the negative IQ faults of the LX2, perhaps toned down a bit but then you can't use raw (if you can live with 22MB/image) and lacks adjustability. It does have that wonderful zoom lens though. I must point out that the LX2's IQ problem isn't noise as is commonly stated, it is the effects of the over aggressive noise reduction applied by the camera which produces watercolour smearing and digital artifacts in the images plus dark areas are prone to greeny/blue blotching. All recent Panasonic compact and bridge cameras using the Venus III image processor suffer from these problems to some degree. Using RAW on the LX2 is a way around a lot of the effects but requires extra work and large storage cards..

The Nikon P5000 looks very adjustable and I have seen nice images from it, though it lacks a wide angle lens. The main issue with the P5000 seems to be AF related in that it is slow to lock on focus. That may or may not be a problem..

Take a look at the Ricoh GX100 as well. It has a great lens that starts at 24mm and the IQ is better than the LX2. It is very adjustable and has a unique detachable EVF. The real downside is that it is quite expensive..

Malcy.

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Http://www.flickr.com/photos/malcy/setshttp://picasaweb.google.com/lumachrome..

Thank you for the replies so far..

I know that going to the store and seeing them all is the best idea, but I have problem finding the P5000, A710, LX2 and F31fd anywhere. I tried the TZ3 though. It doesn't look so bad, but since i've seen Malcy's photos in flickr, I am more and more leaning towards the LX2. The thing is that since I don't need large prints, I can resize the 10mpix photos down to say 7 or 8. The fact is that I just love the pictures I have seen so far taken with the LX2..

The ones taken with the Fuji seem kind of smudgy, atleast to me. It doesn't have an Image Stabilization too, which is kind of a problem..

The Canons have kind of oversaturated colors. The green is so.... green. And the red too. And they are kind of grainy. A lot sharper than the ones of the LX2 but grainier.



Although I am used to the 10x zoom, I am willing to switch back to 4x. If I don't like it, I can always buy a Super zoom camera next time  And I haven't really gotten the chance to put the zoom to that much of a use. And something else is that I don't see much of a zoom from 7 - 10x on the TZ1. The zoom is much more obvious from 3x to 7x. From 7x to 10x it's just the numbers changing on the Display. Not much of a zoom is observed.

6x was it? 6x is enough when I have the 16:9 sensor..

I am like I said a beginner photographer. Just a dude with a camera. Take it with me everywhere I go and take pictures of everything I like. Trips, parties, friends. Your ordinary person, just that I like experimenting too. I'm not exactly the type taking the camera to photograph Family and friends only. I like to have options I can choose from...