Olympus C-750/C-755. I bought mine on sale a few months back for $350
through Fry's online. A colleague just bought the same camera on sale
for like $300. 4MP. Good camera. I bought it specifically for the 10x
optical zoom. I have yet to need the 4x digital zoom. I actually used
the darn thing for months until I realized that I did not even have the
dzoom activated.

Here is an example of it. The first photo is taken from the middle of
Lake Tahoe, looking towards Heavenly Valley (ski area). The second is a
max optical zoom of the mountain peak. I had this on a fast shutter
speed, but keep in mind that this is on a boat moving to the left of
the picture orientation at a few knots, as well as bobbing up and down.
It would probably be sharper on a tripod.

http://community.webshots.com/photo/274678697/274679449QiEgSf

10x optical zoom photo. And this was hard to keep in the frame, moving
boat, like I said, so it would probably be sharper if taken from a
stationary position. I also reduced the image size (therefore
introducing more pixelation) before I posted it.

http://community.webshots.com/photo/274678697/274682619fyltUl

The newsgroup rec.photo.digital.zlr has been set up for the high-end
SLR-like fixed-lens cameras.  You might want to ask in there for comments.
The image-stablised Panasonic FZ20 gets many favourable comments.

I'll cross-post and set follow-ups to that group.

Cheers,
David

I am a pretty rank beginner. But since I like wild life and wildfowl I also
wanted a 10X.
I have a minolta dimage Z2 and I like it and have had decent success with
it for what I was after. Many of the pictures on these two pages were taken
at up to 10X, plus some of them had added from 1.5 to 4X digital zoom.

http://terraholm.com/photos/page4.htm

http://terraholm.com/photos/page5.htm

Check out one of these 10x mutliple zoom cameras -- reviewed at
Review-Center.com:

Olympus C765:
http://digital-camera.review-center.com/catalog/product.php?ASIN=B0001DKQXM

Canon Powershot S1:
http://digital-camera.review-center.com/catalog/product.php?ASIN=B0001G6U52

Minolta Dimage Z2:
http://digital-camera.review-center.com/catalog/product.php?ASIN=B0001G6UB6

It's hard to manufacture a quality 10X optical zoom lens, so anything
you get in a P&S will offer only mediocre quality.  I think you'll be
better of buying a camera with more resolution (pixels), and
cropping.  In other words, an 8Mpix image cropped will probably offer
better quality than a 4Mpix camera uncropped but using a longer lens.

-Joel

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