Nothing wrong with compacts...that's all I use myself. Good compo and a slightly sinister feel.

I like the Panasonic compacts, they tend to have good scene pre-sets that can be used as a starting point to avoid fiddling too much. They show their best during full daylight hours as the many images you have posted can demonstrate, often SLR quality. I thought I would try and see how it would look with a 15 second shutter speed, ideally I would have turned off the shed light but in some ways that makes it a little more sinister than if the main subject was isolated. Andrea you probably know that if you want to paint with light you can call up the scene menu and pick the starry night pre-set and you get a menu of shutter speeds, when using it's important is on a tripod or chair but not in one's hand or you will get blur.. that can be good too. You can be in and out of the shot highlighting objects with a torch. Good idea to set it up outdoors while there is still some light to plan one's course of action.. and avoid tripping in darkness. Good fun indoors too with glasses of liquids and finer pen torches.