Stretch,

Good catch. Actually, I got interrupted and didn't finish my thought on that one. You're absolutely correct, optical zoom is the only way to go, and you'll never regret having more zoom. What I meant to say was, also anything with more than 3x optical zoom will probably need a tripod or some sort of image stabilization, because it gets harder to handhold and get sharp pictures at those higher magnifications. A lot of people don't realize that the more you zoom, the less light reaches the lens, and the steadier you have to hold the camera. With a lot of the high magnifications on the newer cameras, it's almost impossible to handhold the camera without some type of stabilization, either internal or external.

Right now, I don't know of too many cameras with 14x optical zoom. I am looking at a couple that go up to 12X optical, which would be great for outdoors, but don't forget the other end of the spectrum. While high magnification zooms are always prominently advertised as a selling point, you should also consider the wide end of the lens. Most cameras that I've seen don't really go nearly wide enough for my preference. For group pictures, indoor shots, etc, having a true wide angle (28mm equivilent or better) is probabably more useful than extra magnification. It might not seem that important, but if you go to the store and actually compare a 28mm wide angle to a 35 mm (i'm talking about focal lengths, not films size), you'll realize it does make a pretty big difference. Unfortunately, a lot of cameras only concentrate on trying to outdo each other in zoom, at the expense of the wide angle.