Ahhh...I'd research that one before taking it seriously. Any thoughts Skoold?

Trust me when I say that whilst 10x optical zoom is useful, you will need to go wide far more often that you will go tight. My A40 goes in to the rough equivalent of 110mm in 35mm and I rarely use it. The thing you are looking at goes to the equivalent of 300mm. I use my A40 with the wide angle adapter far more often than not. Long tele zooms in these cameras are just a marketing gimmick, IMHO. If your wide end of the lens is not at least the equivalent of 38mm, don't buy it. I'd look for the equivalent of 28mm if you can find it.

10 X optical zoom ? wow
anyonw who can show a pic or two

good point magoo, I've often found the same with my old SLR, especially visiting static air and car museums - the wide-angle lens always gets used more than the paparazzi long lens - maybe I should visit more nudist beaches

The S5000 does seem to just fall into your hand alright. The cost of cameras in IReland can vary widely so the cost of the Canon where I am is €730 but the S5000 is €400...

The lens can replicate 37mm-370mm on a 35mm camera.

Check out this page for photos taken with the zoom. Its pretty impressive!
http://www.steves-digicams.com/2003_reviews/fuji_s5000_samples.html

Excellent website.

Screwballs

I can. I'm trying to upload two pics from Ericcson Stadium I took back in November with my Olympus C-700UZ.

Hawkeye, while this is certainly true for your line of work, the problems start when you want to do Airshows or other kinds of mass events without press pass. That's where 10x really come in handy, and if I could I'd even get me the 1,5x Converter for the full 570mm equivalent.

He over stated it. More like a 3.2 for the price of a 5MP. About the only six at that price (at least that I sell) is Kodak, and except for the 6330 and the 6490 I wouldn't suggest a Kodak. I personally think the 200 dollar Fuji is better and the Olympus is nice at that price. The 6490 is a better 10 optical than the Olympus 750, but the Fuji has a bit better picture if I recall correctly. The issue is the Fuji is double A's.

There are a few things that do make it worth the cash though, that the average sales man won't realize. The video on the S1, is not the regular 10fps and 320 rez. It is 640, 22fps and extremely clear for a digital camera. It looks like a Divx Rip. Amazing vids, the only issue is it is a little slow to focus if you are doing large steps in zooming in and out.

Also, even with the image stabilization, you have 3.2 megapixel. It isn't like stabilization on a camcorder. On a camcorder, it lowers the rez on the CCD and uses the sides of the CCD as a way to stabilize the image. This lowers the quality of the video, but makes it viewable when you are moving. The S1, even with stabilization on is 3.2 megapixel. In reality it is more like 4MP with stabilization, you just can't take a 4MP pic. Still, at 10X you normally need a tripod and with S1 you don't.


I'll send some pics to Paul and request him to host them a day or two so you can see my S500 in action....

Well.. I bought the Kodak DX6490.. 4 Megapixel, 10x Optical zoom, plus 3 x digital on top... so thats 13x zoom... Im impressed with it.. but it only had 16MB internal memory.. going to get myself a 256MB MMC or SD card soon

Tried out the [Mother's Day gift] Olympus C-740 3.2 MP/10x optical zoom yesterday. Worked very well. I immediately got the 256 MB card for it.

My friend's got the Fuji (or one similar with a 10x zoom), and it produces great images. If you're not concerned with manual features, then I'd give it serious consideration.
Depending on what your criteria are, the things I'd say were the most important in a digital camera were shutter lag, lens quality and fire up time. I have a Sony 717 which is a truely great camera and wuite cheap these days. The shutter lag is minimal (one of the lowest), and the zoom okay (5x). It also has a Zeiss lense which is big and clear. Trouble with a lot of camers is the strive to make them pocket friendly compromises the lens quality. Basically you get 5 megapixels, say, which means you can produce 10x8,s, but because the leses are so small, you end up with big prints of bad images. Get a big lens. Canons are great. I've also got a 300d (digital rebel), which is wonderful, but their build quality can let them down. I've also got a little Olypus c-3000, which takes superb photos, but is slow, slow, slow.
Stick to the major photographic brands - Fuji, canon, Olympus, Sony, Pentax, etc, and try not to get any Hewlet Packard/Kodak type cheapos. Also, be prepared to learn how to use some photographic softeare. That's where the key to stunning images really lies. Out of the camera, images tend to be a little soft and inacrate. There's some good free software about. Or if you can afford it, get Photoshop elements. With that you can conquer the world (Well, photoshop, anyway).

Check out this site. It give you reviews and foruma (fora?), that are invaluable.

DPreview

Hope that helps.