You don't mention megapixels. You should consider that as much if not more than zoom. If there are enough megapixels you can crop and enlarge a picture to blow up the specific portion of the picture you want. Unless you are printing it in poster size, most cameras today have more than enough resultion for even 8X10 prints
Here's a great site w/ forums devoted to specific camera models
http://www.dpreview.com/
http://www.dpreview.com/forums/
If you go Canon, check this out
http://www.usa.canon.com/dlc/
Good luck!