I recently bought this camera as a step up from my flip camera. (Which was awful) ...I purchased my olympus sp610uz mainly for Semi professional skateboarding video/photography and ... its great! The video is very good and easy to use, the picture quality is brilliant and i love all the effects and things you can do with the camera. The 22x optical zoom is great extrodinary, however if you record using Zoom you have to turn off the volume... which is slightly strange!
Its a perfect camera for anybody trying to get into professional photography that dont want to get a £500 camera!
The only thing that is not great, is that i bought it thinking that the fish eye setting would be able to film in. This does not work as you can only take picture with it. Also there is no attachment to get a fish eye lens which is a shame.
But apart from that, yes! Awesome camera i would highly recommend!