Panasonic Lumix DMC-FZ7K (Black)

Pros: lighting fast focus, great controls, SMALL compared to competion

Cons: no zoom in movie mode, no dedicated ISO button, no panarama/stich assist mode

Summary: Great camera, I bought yesterday at Circuit City for $399.00 in black, (hint, this camera in silver is on sale for $339.00, the store I was at didn't have silver in stock.) Bought this camera after extensive research, wanting a mega-zoom, yet wanting to retain some portability. This camera is loads smaller, and lighter than the Canon S2 IS, or the Sony H1, both of which are monsters. This camera has a 2.5 inch lcd, as opposed to the 1.8 lcd of the Canon.
This camera seems to focus blazingly fast, with no or little shutter delay, which was one of the main faults of the older Olympus C3000 which it is replacing. It is about the same size of the C3000, and lighter in weight, with 12X zoom as opposed to 3X of the C3000.
The image stabilazation seems to work very well, which was somewhat of a problem with the C3000. Everything on the camera seems well thought out, with it being very easy to learn most funtions without consulting the manuel. I looked closely at the Canon S2 IS in various stores, the controls did not seem to be very as easy to learn, with no explanation of scene modes offered while the camera was in use, which the Panasonic does well.
The movie mode in the Panasonic seems very good, except that there is no zoom,(which even my old C3000 did) or ability change focus (either manuel or auto) once you start recording.
This camera also does not have any type of panarama/stich assist functions, that the Canon seemed to have, however, I don't know how much use I would really get out of that anyway.
Two things I wish it had was a dedicated ISO button, instead of having to navigate through the menu, however, that works fairly easy. The other wish is a dedicated scene mode for Beach or Sunrise/Sunset, that several of the other brands of cameras I looked at had.
One thing that is a big selling point for me is the fact that the flash remains folded down until you want to use it, I can't remember how many times I inadvertantly took a flash photo with my C3000 because I forgot to disable it.
Overall, this camera seems to be a lot less frustrating to navigate through the menus than the C3000 was. It is easy to use, yet has enough features that it is still fun to putz with the controls.
The capibilities it possesses in such a small package will, I confident to say, make it a great and useful camera to use.