Choosing a Digital Camera

Digital photography is rapidly becoming more popular with falling prices, and increasing capabilities in the latest models available. How should you select the camera that is right for you?

First decide what you intend to do with the camera. Is this a replacement for a film camera, or is it an addition, simply to be used to capture quick photos to post on the web? If it is a replacement for a film camera, what sort of pictures did you take before? Are you just a point and shoot person, who likes to capture holiday snapshots, or do you like to get serious, and maybe even print off some enlargements?

If your main use of a digital camera is to photograph products for a web site, or take quick family snapshots to send around the world, you don't need anything fancy. 1Megapixel is probably perfectly adequate, and even a zoom may not be necessary.

If you want to print out a lot of your photos you should look at a minimum of 3 Megapixels. This will print out well at up to A4 size, however won't leave much room for cropping or enlargement beyond that.

If you intend to do a lot of manipulation of your photos, and large printouts look for a 4 - 6 Megapixel camera.

An optical zoom is always better than a digital zoom. Digital zooms reduce detail in an image but maintain the same file size for later printing, but the results are not good if you intend to print big enlargements.

Look at the number of shooting modes a camera offers, as a good selection of inbuilt modes to suit different lighting situations can dramatically improve the results of the photos you take. If you are an enthusiast, you will need a camera that also has manual overide. remote shutter release and manual shutter are also very useful for low light situations. Photo enthusiasts should also look for a camera that supports an independent flash unit, and the ability to add filters, although many filter effects can actually be achieved with good image editing software.

Many cameras now offer limited movie mode shooting. Usually the duration and quality are considerably reduced compared to still photos, and even compared to a digital video camera, so if you are serious about video, you are best to purchase a separate digital video camera, however for quick movie clips to share with friends and family, often the facility provided by still cameras is perfectly adequate. Things to check are the number of frames per second (fps) and the resolution. Higher is always better. Some cameras limit you to shooting in short bursts, while others will allow you to shoot video until your available memory is full.

If you like to get out and about a lot, look for a camera that has good battery life, and be prepared to purchase a spare battery if it uses a rechargeable variety, or else carry plenty of spare batteries with you if it uses standard AA or AAA cells. If you are buying rechargeable AA batteries always purchase the highest capacity NiMH batteries you can find. These can range from 1000mAh up to 2300mAh or more. The higher capacity ones will give you much longer shooting time between charges, and will actually offer better value for money, as each time you recharge a battery it loses a very small amount of capacity.

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