18x = always carrying a tripod, for sure; I did my duty by my LH carrying the tripod, so I eschew such frills nowadays. I do manage to get decent (i.e., sharp enough for the web) pix with my Canon full out at 12X, but only because the shutter is so dang fast! My current problem is that I dropped the camera one time too many & now the viewfinder is out of whack.