I have had the camera a short time(obviously) AND it is my first digital camera. I am fairly quickly getting used to the myriad of potential settings. I bought it to be able to take close ups of birds.
Last night there was a humming bird at our feeder, and we zoomed way in, hand holding while resting an elbow on an arm chair. There sure is alot of movement visible thru the view screen, but with the ES the image came out clear.
As a new-be to the digital world, I find the digitalized image through the view finder and the LCD to be quite disconcerting as that image looks nothing like the real image, and the digitalized image always looks worse. However, I think I will get used to it too.
When I've been taking pictures in bright sun the LCD screen is VERY hard to see--it is not putting out enough light tho I have it on the bright setting.
I would go down to your local vendor with these things in mind and try it out yourself.