new camera-ette

This week, we picked up a new "point and shoot" camera. Our requirements were sort of complex: Secure Digital memory, a good zoom, non-proprietary batteries, reasonably priced, and a good review at Steve's Digicams.

We ended up with the Panasonic Lumix DMC-LZ3. It's a 5MP, 6x optical zoom camera, and it's small enough to throw into a fanny pack. Plusses are: video recording, several auto modes, 2" LCD (we would have liked 2.5 or 3", but you start shelling out lots more for that) and something that I'm thrilled about - two levels of auto image stabilization.

Here are the first shots:

Look, I pulled up half the monkey grass!

6x zoom...