I guess the Panasonic was always a favourite for me. I loved the spec of the TZ3 when it came out and using Flickr I could see the quality of the images. With the Sony failing and the TZ5 announced I waited until sample images and other users fed back their thoughts on TZ5.

Other camera’s considered: Canon IXUS, Fuji something or other as i can’t remember the exact model number and Ricoh R8. It came down to Ricoh and TZ5 as they both had better optical zoom…and it eventually came down to TZ5 due to user feedback and I liked the images that I saw others take.

One other consideration was go for a point and shoot or DSLR. DSLR provides the far better image and also flexibility but cost and size issues were too much for me. Once I had decided that, it was then down to the shortlist above.

I can’t see any camera being robust enough for kids 🙂