Samsung WB5000

I LOVE HORSES, BEST OF ALL THE ANIMALS

Chris,

The Leica D-Lux 4 isn't bad. Also, some of the Panasonic Lumix range (which have a lot in common with those baby Leicas including the glass) are nice. Those are pocketable.

If you can stand a tiny bit more size, the Canon Powershot G11 is waffely versatile- shoots raw, has good noise performance, nice manual control. It's somewhere between "pocket" and "bridge" size, about the size of a 35mm rangefinder. That's a fantastic camera for people who want one camera to cover all eventualities without breaking the bank. Focussing suffers a bit from "Canon disease" (their autofocus is a bit pants), but it generally works ok, and it's fun to use.

Canon S90 is pretty nice too, and is smaller, and also shoots raw. Can't comment in detail as I only had a brief play with one, but the output seems ok- maybe look for reviews.

Personally, I carry a Ricoh GR 3 Digital as a pocket street shooter. It has a 28mm equivalent fixed focal length lens, at a very snappy f/1.9. It focusses and works in conditions where I have trouble even seeing. The noise performance and image quality are very impressive for a 400ish quid camera. I have produced images with it that give my DSLR a run for its money, on occasion (when developed properly from raw, of course). It's a tiny little machine, also.

The GR Digital 3 is one of the most fun to use cameras that I have ever owned, but I accept that it's a bit specialised for some folks.

End of waffle, hope that helps, anyway.

Nah.

The amount artifacts and noise just makes the picture looks like it's from a cheap CCTV camera.

Doesn't sound that hot

It seems to me that the only benefit the Samsumg offers over the DMC-FZ38 is the extra (x18-24) zoom; in all other departments the Panasonic (with a much superior Leica lens, and costing £50 less) appears to have it beaten.

Both cameras could do with a "hot shoe" to fit an alternative external (higher power) flash unit, though. Would it cost the makers that much?

High Zoom? Shoot the moon

A great test of a high zoom/telephoto is to take a shot or two of the moon.

I do this a lot on my Nikon D90, manual mode, ISO Lo1, Shutter around 1/160, Aperture F/11 with my crappy 300mm tamiya lens. Of course these will change with different camera bodies/lenses but its a good base to work with. A good tripod is a necessity.

Because its only 300mm, I have to crop the photo down from 12mp to around 1024x768, then its framed nicely.

But I didn't catch whether this camera had a manual settings mode or not.

The test is whether the camera can discern the craters sharply on a well crescented or gibbous moon. Its a good test of the sharpness achievable in the middle of the shot and so is the peak sharpness obtainable. I found it also shows up badly compressed JPGs more than a daytime scenery shot.

Perhaps in future (or in an addendum) you could publish shots of the moon on high-zoom review cameras?