Works well and takes great photos if used properly

I used the camera on a cruise and took over 400 images on my 2 gigabyte SD card. I tested most of the available modes, including Beach, Sunset, Night, Flower, Landscape, Party and Portrait. I tested manual mode to take panorama photos, after first shooting an auto mode image to get the correct settings for the following panorama. I have stitched together 6 images for a 180° panorama with great results. I tested it at 18x Optical zoom as well as various other zooms and no zoom. I tested it with the N plus flash mode, and in all cases it took the photo. I even caught a whale breaching while holding the camera over my head pointed in the correct direction over the heads of others in between me and the railing on the ship's deck. The fast focus worked well, and I am quite satisfied by the results. Vignetting at 18x Optical does appear, and that is not overly surprising. A panorama does NOT work well if that has appeared in the images, but I would not normally use 18x Optical zoom and expect to make the results into a panorama. Battery life is excellent, and the camera fits well in the leather case I hand cut and stitched based on the camera's size, on my waist. The weight is not too bad, either, and the AA batteries make the camera useful in almost any location, with or without spare batteries on hand. I bought it from Beach Camera [via my son] and it was shipped free and delivered in the 5 business days promised from New Jersey to Utah.

The manual is available on-line from the company's website and I recommend reading it before buying to see all of the features and understand how the camera works. If the manual confuses you, do not buy the camera :-) but otherwise enjoy.