I'm now leaning towards a bridge camera, as I don't think I'll faff with a multitude of lens options, but want something to take decent quality pics, with some flexibility.
Has anyone used one of these - they seem to get good reviews?
I bought the HS10, 2 weeks later I bought a Nikon D5000 SLR. It was just too slow for taking shots of sports or getting 'that' shot of a person smiling etc.
Good news was I only lost £20 on the HS10 via ebay.
The HS20 shoots at 7.6fps, although I don't know about shutter response times
Really? That's pretty quickly. Is that as a single burst? If so, same as the HS10. Shutter response still meant every photo of the 10 was just after I wanted it to shoot though!
Still, the later model ought to be better / faster. I didn't really give it enough time to get the best out of it to be fair.
Comparing bridge to DSLR doesn't make much sense
The Fuji looks decent if you are going to go the bridge route
http://www.fujifilm.com/products/digital_cameras/s/finepix_hs20exr/specifications/
specs suggest the continuous shooting isn't bad if it bothers you