How to Buy a Digital Camera

[gary_hendricks]

Are you buying your first digital camera? Well, you must be confused by the bewildering range of models out there. How do you know which model will suit your needs? To make things worse, digital cameras do not come cheap. Choosing a bad camera will easily cost you a few hundred dollars.

In fact, buying a digital camera need not be a difficult task. I'll highlight the key considerations you need to think through before making that purchase decision. Always, always remember to consider these factors when buying a digital camera:




Battery Life
Number of Megapixels
Zoom Lens
Exposure Control
User Controls
Battery Life
This has got to be one of the most overlooked features in digital cameras. I know many people who go for the latest and greatest digital cameras which are short in the battery life department. If you want to take good photos, your camera needs to powered for extended periods of time. I've found that cost and battery life don't go together - many cheap cameras have good battery life, while some high-end models drain your battery really fast. Make sure you choose a camera that has good battery life.

Number of Megapixels
The megapixel rating of a digital camera determines how much fine detail you can capture in your shots. Typically, the number of megapixels can range around from 2 megapixels to 8 megapixels. How do you decide how many megapixels you need? As a rule of thumb, if you're only interested in taking small snapshots to send via email or for posting on the Web, you won't need more than 2-megapixels. If you want large print outs of your gorgeous photographs, then you'll probably want to get 5-megapixel cameras and above.


Zoom Lens
You'll definitely want a camera with decent optical zoom. Now the keyword here is optical zoom (as opposed to digital zoom). Optical zoom physically moves the camera lenses to zoom in on a subject. Digital zoom, however, digitally averages and magnifies the image within the camera's microchip - resulting in poor picture quality. Many manufacturers' advertisements talk about digital zoom instead of optical zoom - so do be careful when choosing. I'd recommend getting at least 3x optical zoom in any camera you buy.


Exposure Control
The ability to control exposure settings such as shutter speed and lens opening is critical to professional photographers. Cheaper digital cameras only allow you to shoot photos in automatic mode - just press the shutter release and voila, your picture is taken. More advanced users prefer to tweak the shutter speed and aperture to capture fast moving objects or blur the image background. Choose a camera with good exposure control if you foresee yourself taking on photography as a serious hobby.


User Controls
If you are getting a point-and-shoot camera, make sure you find one that's easy to use. User controls to set resolution, macro mode, flash and exposure should be within easy reach. Of course, if you're a serious photography buff who wants to take the time to tweak all sorts of manual settings, then this many not be so critical. I prefer to try out the camera first in the store - play with the controls and get comfortable with them. Only then will you know whether it's comfortable enough for you.


Conclusion
Well, I do hope this article has helped you understand what factors to consider when buying a digital camera. A general piece of advice I can give is - if you're a total newbie, don't go for the latest digital SLR. It may be tempting to get that Nikon D70 right from the start, but I'd reckon its much better to start off with a cheaper camera first. Learn, experiment and build up your digital photography skills. Once you're more skilled, then proceed to upgrade to a better camera. Good luck and happy shopping!

[PhotosGuy]

don't go for the latest digital SLR. In my case, I have to comment that my first SLR made all the difference in the world. Being able to see exactly what the lens saw is what really fueled my interest in photography.

A few links that might take some of the mystery out of the process:
A SHORT COURSE IN CHOOSING A DIGITAL CAMERA
It takes you around and through the digital camera so you know how it works and what its features are used for.
http://www.shortcourses.com/choosing/contents.htm

Beginners Guide to Photography: Short, easy articles for the absolute beginner.Just the basics to get you up and shooting.
http://www.photonhead.com/beginners

Virtual Interactive Camera: The Flash-based Virtual Camera gives users hands-on experience operating an Single Lens Reflex (SLR) camera.
Four tutorials explain focusing, aperture, shutter speed and exposure.
http://www.camerasinteractive.com/index.php

[cactusclay]

Holy smoke, an up and coming columist debue. Nice job! I miss the spell check

[kb244]

Its a nice quick article, it makes you ask more questions than actually tell someone how to buy a camera, as it doesnr reveal anything too extremely useful, just makes you go on a research mission.

For example battery life is mentioned, but no mentions of why it's important just overlooked. When you could explain some of the simple things like, Lithium Ions are very light weight and pack alot of power, but are suseptible to decrease battery life when cold, thus why a pro camera like the Canon 1D, uses NiMH batteries ( doesnt lose as much charge in cold weather ) despite the NiMH holds the same ammount of power as the smaller LiION and weights 4 times more than the LiION. Some would also recomend using NiMH over Alklines if you have a camera that takes AA as the Alklines are known to heat up a lil more, though myself havent verified this. Also the fact that when looking at Lithium ION and NiMH batteries the higher the mAh the more juice its supposed to hold per charge.

Megapixels, a lil more details to get down to it. In the end its the question of "How large would you like to print" , if not at all, 2 megapixels like you said, in my opinion you got 3MP: 4x6 - 5x7, 4MP : 8x10, 5+ : 8x10 and beyound often times to 16x20 without too much problems. Theres also no mentions that higher megapixels may not always be good ( refer to Beyound Megapixels for more info : http://www.thetechlounge.com/article.php?directory=beyond_megapixels_part_1 )

As far as zoom, I'd recomend what you'd need, not "3x", and to completely ignore digital zoom as you said. 3X is the equivilant or roughly so to 150mm focal length on a 35mm camera. Most cameras are gona be 2 to 3x , then jumps to 6, then 10, in the consumer market. If looking at the DSLR market got a whole other set of stuff to look at, especially comparing zoom lens ( ones that changes focal lengths ) to primes ( set focal length, traditionally sharper than zooms ).

Exposure control, not entirely true. Even the cheapest canon's now days will let you set shutter and aperture, however they might not offer metering modes like Center, Evalutive, or Partial, but I think even the cheapest under 200$ canon does offer that as well. Now the features for exposure that a pro would appreciate is being able to see the histogram of the image they just shot, then again I think you can do that on the cheapest canon too.

User controls vary from camera to camera, you got some that put them all on the outside of the camera, some all on the inside of the menu, then some that just omit certain capabilities. In the fluke case of say the Canon Powershot G3 versus a Digital Rebel, the G3 being a "inferior" camera was capable of user-selectible metering modes, second curtain flash, Flash exposure compensation, an invalemetor, and several other little things the Digital rebel did not have, but would have expected on a higher end camera. So this point cannot be easily argued by price, or how "high end" the manufacture places it.

Other things you need to consider
-Size, how portible you planning on being with the camera, is it for kids, or serious work.
-Feel, if you are going to be using the camera alot, try it out in stores, get a feel for it, if you cannot easily perform with the camera, chances are images may not come out as well as you hope.
-Speed, you got things like megapixels, zoom, exposure, controls, etc but if it cant shoot the moment you hit that shutter all that goes down the drain, if yer a family oriented guy taking pictures of kids on say a cheaper but fully customizable camera might lack the speed to capture any of the shots.

If yer a total newbie that has some intentions of learning, sure you can blow your money on the ever extremely cheap Digital Rebel right now ( as opposed to that D70 ) and just keep it stuck in auto mode til yer ready to grow. Or can get a far cheaper consumer model based on your needs.

In the end "It all depends", and you get what you pay for.