What about a good bridge camera (not as fast as a slr I admit), or a "cheap" SLR ?

I don't know how much you planned to pay but in France, some SLR start at 450€ (which is what I paid 2 years ago for my bridge camera)... like the Pentax K100D, which is my boyfriend's camera, and he's very happy with it.

For a "cheap" SLR, you'll also have Nikon D40 or D50, and for Canon I think it would be the Eos 400D. You also have the Samsung 100 something which is the same as the Pentax K100D.

Or you can look at the Panasonic bridges (lumix FZ4, 5, 7 and now it's 18 I think, don't ask me why for the cheaper ones, and FZ50 and so on for the "good" ones ).

It depends a lot on what type of picture you want to take, what size of camera you want to carry around with you and whether you want to do post processing or not.

I've been looking at compact digital cameras for a while. Not only do I want to take pictures of the kittens, but also I'm going to Ethiopia next month to visit a charity project and want to be able to take pictures of people and places out there. It means I need a decent all round camera which I can easily carry around all day, but I haven't got the time, or expertise, to mess around with different lenses or changing settings every time I want to take a picture. For those reasons, an SLR is out as far as I'm concerned.

So far I've tried the Panasonic TZ3 and the Fujifilm f50fd and neither has suited me. The Panasonic is great for landscapes as it has a wide angle but the shutter lag makes taking pictures of my kittens impossible and I didn't find the colours very good. The Fujifilm is a bit quicker and is very good in low light but I didn't really get on with it, not really sure why but it just didn't suit me.

I'm about to try a Nikon P5100. It also has shutter lag but I'm hoping it will be good enough all round for me to live with that. It has the fixings to add an external flash and lenses if you want to but is still compact in size and weight. The Nikon P50 which is due out any day is rumoured to be one of the best compact point and shoots but I can't wait any longer in case it doesn't come out before I go to Ethiopia.

I'd like to recommend my own camera. It's a "bridge" style and has alot of manual controls. You can change F/stops, shutter speed and film type without the need to change lenses. It also has an action setting but I prefer to use the manual controls.
I carry it around alot, it's quite light and signifigantly smaller than a DSLR. I think it's a rather good compromise.

This is the Canon S3 IS



and here's an action shot for comparison.

These bunnies were moving around like kittens, but I did manage to freeze the back ends of 2 of these guys by adjusting my shutter speed. The lack of clarity you see in the photo is due to the fact that I had to resort to digital zoom to get up close, and it was dusk. They were 60 metres away! I know this camera well enough now that I'm confident I'll be able to get good action shots of the kitties as it does freeze action at 250th of a second(shutter speed)



again, no matter what camera you use you'll probably have to hake 10 photos for everyone that turns out(even with a DSLR). I also use a tripod when possible to minimise shake from my side of the camera.

EDIT Some better action shots taken with this camera can be found here http://www.flickr.com/photos/loveyourdog/359037189/

and here http://www.flickr.com/cameras/canon/powershot_s3_is/

My camera : Panasonic FZ4



Small and light

Some photos taken with it :





Those cutties were not too near but with a x12 zoom you can get some great pictures .







Still with the same camera...