Going back to Conrad's recommendation for a camera with zoom and images stabilization, here's a couple of shots I took last night with, and without, the zoom:
I shrunk these down quite a bit, I'm on a slow connection because I'm out at a mooring.
The first one is similar to what your cell phone or point-and-shoot camera might capture. The second one is zoomed way in. It's a little pixelated because I cropped out just the detail of the plane. But I think it demonstrates the value of both zoom and image stabilization pretty well.
I shrunk these down quite a bit, I'm on a slow connection because I'm out at a mooring.
The first one is similar to what your cell phone or point-and-shoot camera might capture. The second one is zoomed way in. It's a little pixelated because I cropped out just the detail of the plane. But I think it demonstrates the value of both zoom and image stabilization pretty well.