My wife owns an S5000.

The Fujifilm camera uses xD cards only used by one other camera company

So now, what do you want? If you want the flexibility, and an 18x zoom, I would not go for the Finepix, but instead for the Panasonic FZ-18 (which does not have all the issues of the TZ-3, and has an 18x zoom, 8mp, manual adjustements, stabilisation, etc).

If you want the portability, I think you should then settle for say a Canon IXUS, some models start at 28mm equivalent.

Finally, if you really want to do a lot of "poor lighting" photos, and without flash, then an FZ-18 or an IXUS will do the trick but then results won’t be very good quality as soon as you hit ISO 200 to 400. The only camera that will take good quality photos in low light, no flash, is a DSLR – but this has vast implications (budget, size, weight, need to exchange lenses, poor macro capability unless you buy very expensive lenses, lesser zoom range unless you buy expensive lenses, etc.).

I have owned a FZ-18 for nearly a month now. I am very happy with the lens (18x zoom starting at 28m, stabilised), with the in-camera correction of distorsions or aberrations (so you see pretty much no distorsions at 28mm), with the macro (down to 0.4 inch), with the quick autofocus (and ability to customise the AF points), with the full Manual settings if need be, with the easy menus, and with "live view" ie you can compose the shot on screen (something only the high end dslrs can do, and their kits start at over 1’500 dollars). All of this with a package that remains portable enough, that you can always have it with you, say in the small pocket of an Easypack backpack (which would not be the case with a dslr).

The only thing I am less happy with, is the image quality from about 400 ISO and up – oh you still get quite decent shots, that work in small format, but it’s not pristine quality.

hope this helps