3mp with antishake or 4mp without?

[digicamak]

hi there,

newbie here - and hoping for a little advice to guide me in the purchase of a new digital camera. I currently have a fujifilm a310, but want to upgrade.

I've narrowed my choices to the following:

Fujifilm S5500/5100 - 4mp, 10x zoom

Panasonic Lumix dmc-fz3 - 3mp, 12x zoom with anti-shake.

(If the Panasonic Lumix dmc-fz15 was available outside of the US I think I would get this - its a 4mp with 12x zoom and anti-shake and got very good reviews)

so my question is - how much of a difference in quality is there between a 3mp camera and a 4mp one?

(Or should I just wait and see if the fz15 becomes available in Europe?)

any advice or comments appreciated,

thanks

[Newbie]

Megapixels doesn't mean quality, its mostly there to give you an idea of how big you can print your pictures. Both 3 and 4mp are quite close, both will give you photo quality 4x6 and 5x7 and both will give you excellent 8x10, the 4mp will obviously be a bit better, but the difference won't be easily noticeable.

Unless you want to use a Tripod 100% of the time when you are at full telephoto, get the FZ3.