Panasonic Lumix DMC-FZ50

The ring-based zoom and manual focus gives you a lot more accuracy than any toggle out there. When in manual focus, the camera display digitally enlarges the center part of the frame to give you a better accuracy in your focus. Though the accuracy is nowhere close to the kind you get in an SLR, it's still the best in its category.

There are quite a few upgrades in this one as compared to the earlier model, the FZ30. Besides the obvious upgrade in the camera resolution, the Venus II processing engine has also been upgraded to Venus III. The TIFF image format is no longer here, but you still have RAW.

The FZ50 now supports SDHC cards for higher capacity storage, which does come in very handy considering that 10 megapixel RAW files do take up quite a bit of space.

Panasonic superzooms have always had really good optical image stabilization systems, and this one’s no different. Though nothing can really save you from hand jitters at full 12x zoom, the OIS does come in handy during the less-than-perfect lighting conditions.

The thing about the FZ50 is that even though it has all these great manual features, it’s still very accessible to a casual user. There’s an auto mode that handles just about everything for you and there are also a whole bunch of scene modes to help you take the right shot. This is what makes the FZ50 an excellent bridge camera.