A birthday present to myself

I've ordered a new digital camera! My current camera is a Kodak Easyshare V530, which debuted in 2005. I purchased it around Thanksgiving and although it has been quite reliable through the years, the rechargeable battery needs to be replaced again. Since the camera is 6 years old and a lot of advancements have been made with digital cameras, it made sense to upgrade.

I decided on the Panasonic Lumix DMC-ZS6. The reviews for this camera are pretty good and it has better zoom and macro capabilities than my old camera. Consumer Reports rated the ZS7 (the successor) very well, and reviews I found for this model say that it has the body of the ZS5 (predecessor) with a lot of the features of the ZS7. I didn't want to purchase the ZS7 because it has built-in GPS, and the major complaint on Amazon is that the battery is constantly drained because of the camera updating its location. Plus the ZS6 is significantly cheaper!

I have to admit that it took quite a while to read through reviews -- both online and in print -- and decide what options were most important for me. [Goodbye HD quality video recording!] I also didn't want to have to install a particular software package onto my computer in order to download photos. Hopefully transitioning to this camera will be a piece of cake.