I think you have made an excellent choice Pheonix, judging from glsammys photos those Panasonics really deliver the goods in terms of image quality.
I agree totally with glsammy, the best way to find out what a camera can do is to dive in and have a play, the manuals are a handy guide but are often full of over-technical stuff that you will not need for a start, & should you read it all they only serve to confuse.
I've not used a Panasonic so I don't really know about their settings but my advice is to try getting used to working in the
aperture priority mode as soon as you can, this gives you total control over setting the depth-of-field & lets the camera set the shutter speed accordingly. This mode is possibly the best for general photography & close-up/macro work.
Full auto( point & shoot) mode is ok for a start but there are just too many situations where it can be fooled into making the wrong settings for optimum image quality.
I can reccomend one book, that is Digital photographers handbook by Tom Ang, an excellent over-view of digital techniques with some very helpful tips and advice included. it costs around £18 and has just been completely revised & updated.
Look forward to seeing your images soon.
