New camera.

[margaretcarnes]

Yes - the Lumix battery life seems pretty good as well - which was a concern of the OP.
Mine was fully charged before the last trip to LOS and after 2 months still had over a third charge left in it. Difficult of course to judge. Some people take stacks of pics. I took maybe about 80, but also ran about 45 minutes of video on it.

[Noz]

Thanks to all the above for the helpful hints and recommendations. That Panasonic Lumix sounds good and I've seen plenty good reviews of it too. I'll be out and about next week to see what Hua Hin has to offer on the camera front.

[buksida]

Personally I wouldn't buy a camera in Hua Hin, the photographic shops here are overpriced with limited selections.

Try the photo shop in Big C (Petburi), you'll make a good couple of grand saving and they have a nice selection.

Bought both my Nikon D70s there and the Sony Cybershot W80 for the mrs, the latter was 2,000 baht cheaper than an identical one in Hua Hin. It is a great little camera as you can put it into manual mode and play with the settings to get some nice effects and shots. You only need over 7-8 MP if you want to make prints larger than A3.

Here is a rough guide to prices in Thailand:
http://tohome.com/camera.aspx

[Noz]

Thanks buksida. That website is pretty handy. The more I read, the more I realise I don't need a complicated piece of equipment and basic will do nicely. I like the look of the Canon PowerShot A480. Some googling shows up very good reviews for a camera in this price range and Canon also incorporated some fancier features from the more expensive models.
There's a decent discount on that tohome.com website too and free 2GB SD card, so I'm tempted. Has anyone bought anything from them before and can report on the service?