About a month ago I decided to buy a small digital camera for taking pictures while on travel. Carrying my large Nikon D70s has become too much of a burden.

I got a recommendation for a Lumix from a friend and decide to take a look. I found one at Costco but fortunately did not buy immediately. After doing about a week's worth of research, I decided on the DMC-TZ5.

The Panasonic Lumix DMC-TZ5 camera has a Leica 28mm wide angle lens with 10x zoom. That means you get 28mm - 280 mm in a little point and shoot camera. It's got a number of other cool features you can read about on the Amazon link, including Intelligent Exposure.

So far, the pictures I've taken are above satisfactory to outstanding. I needed to read the manual to get the hang of taking macro shots, and I'm really happy with the results.

Not only does this camera take great shots, but it also takes amazing video! I'm still playing with the settings, but I can zoom while I'm shooting and the results are seamless. My cats know I'm up to something here.

I chose a sampling of a few of the first photos I've taken with this camera. None of these photos have been touched up by Photoshop or any other photo manipulation software. This is amazing to me, because most of my photos taken with my D70s require auto leveling at least. Not always, but often.

I put them into a slide show. Some are macros of flowers in my garden, a couple of pictures of my darling cats (one 18 years old, the other 2 - I'm sure you'll be able to tell which is which), a "self-portrait," a sunset and a couple of other pictures.

I can't wait to take this camera to Nepal and Bangkok soon! It will be fun having a camera I can slip into a waist pack and it will be fun to have a camera I can take videos with. I was able to take videos with my old Nikon Coolpix 450, but was limited to a couple of minutes. On this camera I'm limited to the size of my card and the resolution I choose.

Initially, after deciding that this was the camera I wanted to purchase, I looked for the lowest price. I found it on Broadway Photo.

Some of you reading this may already be ready to comment! Wait, before you do. I got an email from Broadway Photo saying they couldn't process my order until I called them (thankfully).

First, they told me that the battery coming with my new camera only lasted 20 minutes and I should buy the correct battery for $129.00 (I kid you not). When I said, "is this the Panasonic CGA-S007A lithium battery?" he said "yes." I said it was available on Amazon for $39.95. Then he said, "By the way, this is the Japanese model, if you want the American model with the correct cables it will cost more (he gave me a price more than what I would pay on Amazon)."

I said "Please cancel my order." To their credit, he cancelled my order immediately, no more questions asked.

I purchased it on Amazon and it arrived about 3 days later. It came with the afore mentioned lithium battery and charger. All through Amazon, I purchase an additional rechargeable battery and a Sandisk SDSDRX38192 Extreme III SDHC 8GB Card with MicroMate Reader. The battery came the same day and the card came a couple of days later (it came from Beach Camera).