Please help me pick a digital camera with at least a 10x optical zoom for pictures of birds and whatnot. $500 for just the camera is about my speed considering all the additional costs: extended warranty, better memory card thingy, a flash, case, rechargeable batteries and charger (I guess you need two sets of batteries), and whatever else those guys down at Sammy's Camera can talk me into buying. One big problem I've encountered is that a lot of these digital cameras don't have a hot shoe*(see photo at bottom) for a flash. A few hours ago I discovered this thing called a slave-flash that you connect to the lens, and this other contraption I wont get into.
Here's a few cameras I've looked at: [two of these cameras get mixed reviews, the canon is too new to get a good review on yet]
Konica Minolta Z5 [5 mega pixels, 12x optical zoom, image stabilization, 2" LCD, Has a Hot Shoe, price about $450]
Canon PowerShot S2 IS
[5 mega pixels, 12x optical zoom, image stabilization, 1.8 extendable LCD, no hot shoe, price about $500]
Panasonic Lumix DMC-FZ5 [5 mega pixels, 12x optical zoom, image stabilization, 1.8 LCD screen, No hot shoe, about $500]
Any other camera/s you can think of would be great, even if it costs a little over the $500 I was planning on.
Thanks, dsm
*The Hot Shoe is on top of a camera for attaching a flash unit.
