Any photo geeks among us?

Me and Kuif are thinking of buying a new photocamera before the lill one arrives. We have our eye on a Panasonic Lumix DMC-FZ7. Its a 6 megapixel one with 12x optical zoom. Ofcourse there is a dozen better camara's around and idealy one would get a SLR camera, but there sadly is such a thing as budget so we try to get the best we can and aim for sumthing that will last us for the next 3-4 yrs. Seeing we do not have a digital videocamera its kinda a bonus we can use it for some (low quality) filming too.
We think its very important it won't take 3 secs before a picture is taken once the button is pressed (this is what our current one does..) and batteries should last us a bit longer then 5 mins.

Anyone have any suggestions/opinion?

I know what you mean about the shutter delay times Schan. I can't count the number of times I've missed the perfect shot of Amy by .5 of a second grrr. Let me know what you choose in the end because we need a new one too

This site seems quite thorough and has some useful information to consider: http://www.cameras.co.uk/camera-reviews ... mc-fz7.cfm

And also a table with which to compare shutter lag: http://www.cameras.co.uk/html/shutter-l ... risons.cfm