Interesting thread . It was news to me that the Panasonic Lumix collects dust on the sensor. Daunting b/c I was planning to buy a super zoom model-looks like the one pictured here. I haven't had this problem with my other digital compacts (Olympus and Nikon) and was planning to upgrade to the new lighweight LUMIX. Does anyone else have experience with this brand- I appreciate that YouTube link btw- as it made it abundantly clear that I would not attempt that cure for dust by taking apart and reassembling a camera with my three or four thumbed approach to small objects .

Any other camera suggestions catters ? I am looking into superzooms that are lightweight - like Ieeneia I photograph birds .

Btw I totally agree with leeneia about film-newer cameras are so overloaded with functions you usually have to flip three or four menus / buttons before you take a photo - by then the bird has migrated across the county. With the old film cameras it was a quick snap and you were done.

Quality of slide film still seems the best to me too - despite how much digital has greatly improved. I remember I had a friend scan a photo I took on slide film of a mountain range with a tiny clump of daisies in the foreground ledge I was standing on. Everything from the flowers at my feet to the distant peaks was sharp - and anazingly. as we went in closer to view the flowers - even the veins on the leaf were tack sharp.

But as much as I 'd like to encourage everyone to give grand old film another try- I went digital about ten years ago and hwve't done any film work since .