Thanks for the feedback. I don't necessarily need a DSLR, because the zoom is what I want - there is a canon that does a 20x zoom, and the panasonic does 24x, but the panasonic does have the battery pack and the canon takes regular batteries and I love that. I currently have a canon powershot, so that is why I was inclined to get another canon because we can't fault the one we have, but we've outgrown it. Then I was told about the new lumix cameras that are coming out late this month and next month and they are the ones I was looking at. It's just so hard!