panasonic lumix FZ28 review

I wanted to post this here since posting it at B+H Photo (a good online store for photo supplies) forces me to transfer all rights, which I didn't like. Unfortunately, I didn't discover that until I'd already written the review, so I'm posting here instead.

I'll probably use this camera from now on to replace the Nikon p5100 as my "carry around"
camera which I leave in my jacket pocket. I also own a Nikon D300, a few other cheaper compacts, and several film cameras.

The FZ28 was selected on the basis of it zoom capability and lots of research (basically reading lots of reviews by others, mostly at amazon.com and dpreview.com). I was frustrated with the P5100 on a few levels

(a) the noise in all but almost perfect shooting, which especially bad in low light settings,

(b) the lack of a significant zoom capability. (I was hoping that with the p5100 being 12M, I could simply crop but the noise was too bad usually to produce good photos.)

Regarding the FZ28, the main advantage is the zoom. It has a 10M sensor and 18x zoom (which I've read can be increased if you reduce the image size via the menu, but I haven't tried this).
The menu features are nice (a manual setting, for example), not significantly better than the Nikon p5100 IMHO. However, the zoom is great. the noise is not as bad as the p5100, and the lens
is very good.

Pros:

(a) Great zoom and good lens,
(b) Nice selection of menus options
(c) small enough to fit in a (large) jacket pocket.

Cons:
(a) It still has noise, just not as much as the p5100. (I base my comparisons with the Nikon D300, which is excellent, IMHO.)
(b) The autofocusing ability could be speedier.
(c) When shooting hand-held at full zoom, picures are often blurry due to slight hand-movement (this is not a defect in the camera, just a point that the buyer should be careful of).
(d) The raw format is so odd that very few software products can handle it, so either be prepared for changing your work-flow or simply ignoring it. (Why camera manufacturers can't decide on a common raw format is beyond me.)
(e) The lens caps makes "off the hip" shooting more awkward.