As a student photographer I was about to set off to university to study the subject further. I bought the Fujifilm S5500 after seeing the great review it got in Practical Photographers magazine (voted best choice).
The first thing I did was to buy a 128mb card for it enabling me to store up to 969 low quality photos and 128 high quality photos. In truth I never need to shoot more than 60 or so photographs on a shoot in order to capture exactly what I want but its great knowing that there's so much more to work with.

The camera itself is smaller than most other DSLR's I've seen but still does the job incredibly well. It handle locations very well and is durable, I've taken it out in all weathers and locations from snow to boiling hot open spaces, and at no time has it ever shown any wear or tear.

The 10X optical zoom works nicely and doesn't produce that much noise in the final image. I've used the zoom at it's maximum a number of times and have been more than happy with the outcome.

I strongly suggest this camera to people who take photography seriously, but not seriously enough to get into debt over. My fellow photographers at university have shelled out a lot of money for their DSLR's and still don't manage to achieve what this camera can.

Durable, reliable, power efficient, easy options.