Thanks for the tips @wxman . I will have plenty of terrain in the view as I'll mainly be looking out at the horizon and occasionally trying to spot wildlife out in the open space. It's tempting to go with the cheaper SD49225U as I really don't have any need for auto tracking in this location. The only thing I think may be useful is the image stabilization. I will be mounting it to the side of my house but its pretty common to have heavy wind here. So basically I'd be going for the 30x zoom and the image stabilization if I go with something like the SD59430U. Nearly double the cost of the SD49225U though