please help me to select the digital camera for holidays

[chwin]

I am a newbie in this digicam forum.

I am going to buy the digital camera for the holiday season.

My hobby is taking a picture of wild life, nightshot, and sports. And also I like to take the picture of object in macro range.
My budget is about 600 US $ so I am thinking of the following cameras:

1) Panasonic FZ30
2) Canon S2IS
3) Fuji S9000

Could you recommend a good camera that has manual controls and best for my hobby.

I would like to have some opinions or suggestions on the following:

Using this 10x or 12x optical zoom, how far away from the object that I can take the picture clearly. Can I get the details of the person face (something like smiling,crying, etc) from 300m or more?

[dlhoffer]

I'm a newbie here too & am very interested to see what responses you get to your inquiry. I am trying to choose a new camera for the holidays as well & am also considering the Canon S2 IS and the Panasonic FZ20. Both have deals on them for around $400 right now. I would love a DSLR, but can't afford one right now. Does anyone have any opinions as to which of these 2 would be the best? I have a 1 year old & 5 year old so I take lots of photos of them - so need something with with fast shutter lag. Also, the lighting in my house is not the best so need something that can handle indoor photos better than my little HP 3 MP I'm using currently.

I'm kind of leaning towards the Panasonic, but would like some first hand knowledge since I have no outlet to actually see the cameras in person & am having to order online. Thanks so much for any input!

[E.T]

Zoom number doesn't mean s**t in the end.
It's still 10x zoom regardless is focal length range 10-100mm or 100-1000mm.
For getting detailed shot of bird/animal (or maybe football player) from as far as possible only thing which matters is that bigger focal length number.

So Fuji takes bad beating on that aspect, its tele is only 280mm (but it has good 28mm wide angle), neither its highest ISOs are good for else than downsized images/small prints and for night shots tripod is pretty much mandatory in every case.
S2IS is just Canon's mandatory entry to "ultrazooms without good wide angle" class while in addition to that FZ30 is also Panasonic's top model.

fuji s7000 (if you can still find one new) w/ Olympus 1.7x T-Con lens for 310mm equivalent