I've owned an FZ50 for a couple of months now, and love it to bits. But I have to partly agree with one thing hedzup said.
Noise can be a problem with this camera -- but only really at the higher ISO settings, and the noise reduction feature isn't particularly intrusive or detrimental when set to "low". Yes, ISO 1600 is horribly noisy, but for some shots, that's actually exactly the effect I want, so it's not all bad.
Overall, great camera. Very fast, excellent battery life (and fairly quick charging), great zoom, awesome lens in general, and it's loaded with enough features that I don't even know how half of them work yet.
I read a *lot* of reviews for various bridge cameras when I was upgrading from my old Samsung Digimax 240, and the vast majority seem to say that it's the best money can buy without getting a digital SLR. From what I've used of it so far, I don't doubt that.
