If you’ve been contemplating buying yourself a digital camera this holiday season then you’ve probably already discovered that there’s a huge array of cameras out there.With the constant advance of technology, shopping for a digital camera can be as bewildering as choosing the right laptop. Even longtime photographers can have trouble grasping the specs and lingo surrounding these new machines.
I’m not going to talk you through all the different features on a digital camera or tell you which models are best (something that is really quite individual and which changes regularly over time) however there are a few questions and factors to keep in mind when making the decision of which camera is best for you. When searching for a digital camera there are a few factors that I encourage people to keep in mind when they buy a digital camera
Know what you want:
Ask yourself if you’re a passenger or a driver. That is, do you like to let the camera make the decisions, or do you want to learn how to make photos according to your inner artist’s eye? If you’re the former, most compact and subcompact cameras will take good care of you for a reasonable price. If you’re in the latter group, you’ll want a camera that offers more manual control and an excellent lens.
Write out a list of all the possible uses of your camera. Think hard: Because of its convenience and versatility, you may find yourself using your digital every day, even if you haven’t used a film camera in years.
If the camera is a gift for someone else, consider their lifestyle and list their potential uses for the camera
Determine Your Budget :
First, the good news: For less than $500 you can now get a digital point-and-shoot camera that delivers far better image quality than a point-and-shoot film camera.Over the evolution of film cameras, they’ve split into an array of categories according to their design and purpose. Digital cameras fall into the same major categories, with one exception.
1)Point and shoot cameras:
- PRICE: $75-$500
- Low-cost, easily portable and compact.
- Live-preview LCD-screen instead of traditional up-to-the-eye viewfinder.
- Fixed-lens (non-interchangeable).
- Require minimal photographic experienced and are meant for general use, family shots, scenic shots, or casual artistic experimentation.
2)Bridge cameras :
- PRICE: $400-$1,000
- A category unique to digital cameras.
- Combine the convenience of point and shoot models (live-preview, compactness, lower price) with some of the added quality of DSLRs (large, powerful lens and good quality traditional viewfinder).
- Typically fixed-lens
3)DSLRs:
- PRICE: $600-$8,000
- Stands for digital single-lens reflex
- Exceptionally accurate "parallax-free" optical viewfinder
- High quality, interchangeable lenses.
- Larger and higher quality image sensor.
- Lack of shutter lag
- Used mainly by dedicated amateurs and professionals.
What kind of memory card does it take?
Don’t buy digital cameras with XD memory cards. Bla bla bla…, it’s better… but let’s think along the line of practicality.
Almost every single laptop takes SD cards directly into the machine without any extra gadgets.
It’s incredibly handy to just be able to pop out the memory card and insert it into almost any new laptop on the market today to grab all the photos. Even my HP Mini 1000 notebook has a spot for SD cards.
Megapixels don’t matter.
Okay, what I mean is, megapixels aren’t as important as most people think. Many base their buying decisions solely on the megapixel count, but it’s not the feature most can take advantage of.
There are point-and-shoot cameras offering 10 megapixels, but for most users, it’s no different than a 5 megapixel camera. Megapixels are only important if you want to produce large prints (very large). 5 megapixels is enough for a print up to 11 x 14. If you aren’t going to make prints larger than that, the extra megapixels don’t offer any benefits.
Sensor size:
The bigger the sensor, the less noise you’ll see in the pictures your camera takes — and the better it will do with low-light shots. That’s a big part of why DSLRs take better photos than compact and super-compact cameras. If you’re a really serious shooter, you’ll want a full-frame sensor camera like the Canon 5D Mark II — the sensors in these cameras are the same size as a frame of 35mm film, which improves image quality. It also lets you use the full field of view of lenses meant for 35mm cameras.
Focal length and zoom:
Forget zoom factor (3x or 5x) — what you really want to look at is focal length, usually rendered in terms of its "35mm equivalent," or what it would be comparable to in a 35mm film camera. And concentrate on the wide end of the spectrum, not the telephoto end: A 24-120mm lens and a 30-150mm lens are both 5x zoom lenses (the longest focal length is five times bigger than the smallest, meaning a fivefold increase in magnification) but the one that starts at 24mm has a wider field of view. That can make a big difference when shooting landscapes or groups of people indoors.
Digital Zoom!
After trying to convince you with megapixels, digital camera vendors will next try to sell you on X’s. As in "200X Digital Zoom!" Don’t fall for this, either.
As with point-and-shoot film cameras, almost all digital cameras come equipped with zoom lenses. Unfortunately, they also come with digital zoom features, which create a "virtual" zoom effect by digitally enlarging and cropping your image so that it looks like it was shot with a longer lens.
These features are almost always terrible. In fact, no matter what kind of camera you get, one of your first actions should be to turn off its digital zoom. If you really need a digital zoom effect, you’ll get better results by blowing up the image yourself using your favorite image editing application.I would highly recommend that you only take into consideration the ‘optical zoom’ when making a decision about which camera to buy.
What batteries does it take?
Hopefully not AAA or AA batteries. coz they are history.
Those can be handy in the sense that you just need to carry extra batteries to pop in new power, but for me it’s annoying to have to deal with 2 or 3 batteries just to charge your camera.
And it’s wasteful if you don’t use rechargeable AAA or AA batteries.
Enter the Li-ion batteries, or Lithium ion batteries. Fancy way of saying, it’s a battery pack that is rechargeable. You pop it into a charger, and into a wall… and it charges. Simple as that.
In the end, you may not be able to say exactly why you like one camera over another. It’s usually a combination of image quality, feel, and "cool" factor. Before you make that purchase, though, be sure that you’ve made your decision based on how well the camera fits your needs, and not on marketing hype. A higher-priced camera is not necessarily better, in terms of image quality or your needs. If you ask yourself the questions presented here, you should end up with a camera that delivers quality you like and features that are appropriate to the digital imaging power that you need.
Remember, the best camera for you is the one you learn how to use — when the magic moment happens, you don’t want to miss it because you’re fiddling with the knobs and on-screen menus.
