With the Black Friday deals available about a month ago, I treated myself to a new camera, since my old one was dying. I ended up getting a Canon ELPH 520 HS. I got it mainly for the good zooming capabilities over other point-and-shoot cameras. As someone interested in geography and also someone who likes to explore places (as evidenced by the photo threads over the years), having a great zoom when going places will be pretty cool.
I decided that with some time off on Christmas Eve, that I would go out and test the zoom on this camera. I drove down to Delaware City, where there is a nice view of the Wilmington skyline (about 12 miles/19 kilometers away). This is what the camera gave me with 48x digital zoom. The first one is real colors, and the second one I auto-corrected the colors on my computer to pronounce things.
Here's the skyline with the 12x optical zoom. Other landmarks are also visible, like the Astra Zeneca office tower in Fairfax on the left (about 15 miles/24 kilometers away), as well as the New Castle Range Lights right below that office tower (used for ship navigation), and the steeples and cupolas of the colonial town of New Castle on the right.