I started of using a bridge camera.
I used a Fuji S4000 throughout pretty much the entirety of last year, and it's a great little camera, though it's been replaced now by the S4500, which in turn has been replaced by the S4800, so I'd look at that. The S2980 is an older camera, I'd take any S4xxx camera over it, but preferably the S4800 since it's the newest.
If you're after zoom, then both Canon and Nikon have some bridge cameras with more than 40x zoom which is just insane. The 30x zoom on the S4800 really is a lot!
Fuji are a decent brand for bridge cameras, they're probably the most affordable, but Canon, Nikon and Panasonic are also definitely worth looking at. Not used a Canon or Nikon bridge, but my Dad used to own a Panasonic DMC-FZ8 which was a great (if slightly old) bridge camera. I'm sure Panasonic's bridge cameras are still good.
The Fuji S-series are your 'bread and butter' bridge cameras if you like, but the SL series are also worth taking a look at. The Fuji SL 300 has the same 30x optical zoom as the S4000/4500/4800 cameras do, but it has a hotshoe mount on it too, which may be useful if you want to use external flashes in the future (not sure what the compatibility is like though, it may only work with Fuji flashguns).
One thing about the big zooms which I notice though is not so much blur at high zoom (and by the way, the image stabilization system on the Fuji cameras works great at high zoom, very little blur or shake at 30x zoom), but is actually having large zoom wears the batteries down quicker, since the motors have to move a larger lens. Fuji have their HS range of bridge cameras, which are really nice cameras actually, and have manual barrel zooms (a bit like what you get on D-SLR lenses). Since I switched from using a bridge to a D-SLR, I can tell you that moving a barrel to zoom is really nice and allows you to hold the camera steadier, and doesn't reduce battery life. One other thing about the HS series is I believe they allow you to shoot in RAW, which is great if you want to edit your images (which I would advise). They're a tiny bit more expensive than the Fuji S-range cameras, but the extra price is probably worth it.
The HS30 has a 30x zoom, the HS50 has a 42x zoom.
Really, any bridge camera is probably better than your average point and shoot, since you get more features, but Fuji, Canon, Nikon and Panasonic are good brands to stick to.
Hope this helps.
