I want a digital camera but don’t know how to choose a make or model. What do I need to know?
Digital cameras are tremedously popular today and not without reason. They’re small and lightweight, they have large, attractive viewfinders, and often function as both a still & video camera. Most importantly, digital cameras provide instant gratification. You can see the photos you’ve taken seconds after you snap, and get to choose whether you want to keep your pics or delete them and steady your hand a bit more. What’s more, you can have your pictures in-hand almost immedietly, and without the time or cost of a middleman to develop your shots for you. With a digital camera, you’re the photographer, editor and developer all rolled into one.
Despite their widespread popularity, buying a digital camera can still be a daunting task for the newcomer. It may look like a camera and quack like a camera, but when it comes to the specs there’s a whole other world of terminology that you have never encountered. Before you invest a few hundred dollars in one of these devices, you need to be able to sort out the megapixels from the megabytes.
Megapixels
These guys are number one on our list because they’re the most often used word when it comes to digital cameras. Marketers will advertise the megapixel count loud and clear on every camera, and your friends most likely compare theirs in terms of megapixels. Pixels can be described to the lay person as the atomic unit of computer graphics; a pixel is a dot on your screen, and a group of pixels come together to form an image. The word megapixel means one million pixels. Take the width and height of an image in pixels, multiply those two numbers and you’ve got your megapixel count (e.g. an image with a resolution of 1280×1024 figures out to 1.3 megapixels). Megapixels are commonly used to express the quality of images a camera can take, but technically a larger megapixel count simply means bigger images. Megapixels do have an definate impact on image quality, but they should not be your only rating tool since cameras have many other features that influence their ability to take clear photos.
Optical vs. Digital Zoom
Like megapixels, zoom ratings are another numbers game in which quantity does not always imply quality. Optical and digital zoom are both functions that magnify the image of your subject, but with drastically different results. Optical zooming works the same way it does in a traditional camera – the lens shifts position to magnify light and enlarge the subject. Digital zoom on the other hand, uses a computer algorithm to enlarge an area of the image by scanning and enhancing its pixels. In the end, optical zoom produces a far superior result – digitally magnified images will appear blurry and pixelated in comparison to their optical counterparts. Therefore, optical zoom is much more important than digital.
Storage Capacity
When it comes to storage capacity, bigger is always better and most of the time, maximizing your storage capacity involves buying an add-on memory card. Your typical digital camera comes with a small memory card that will hold between 50 – 100 photos (and a few minutes of video if your camera has a movie mode). In addition to storage capacity, there are different brands and types of cards that operate at different speed. A faster card will reduce the amount of time it takes your camera to save an image to memory. Every camera’s display and packaging will tell you what sort of memory card it requires.
So how large and fast of a memory card should buy purchase? The answer is the largest capacity you can find with a price tag that’s comfortable for you. There are two factors that decide how many photos a memory card can hold from a particular camera: the resolution of your camera and the size of the memory card. For example, a 6 megapixel camera with a 1 gigabyte card has a capcity for over 300 photos or 45 minutes of video.
| Megapixels | 128mb | 256mb | 512 | 1gb | 2gb |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2MP | 142 | 284 | 568 | 1137 | 2274 |
| 3MP | 106 | 212 | 426 | 853 | 1706 |
| 4MP | 64 | 128 | 256 | 512 | 1024 |
| 5MP | 51 | 102 | 204 | 409 | 818 |
| 6MP | 40 | 80 | 160 | 320 | 640 |
One final note on memory cards – make sure that your camera’s card can be upgraded. There are a few models that have internal-only memory that cannot be removed. If you buy one of these cameras, your memory upgrade will be useless.
Battery Power
Your typical digital camera operates on either disposable or rechargable batteries. In my experience, disposable batteries are both inadequate and costly – they run down quicker requiring you to constantly purchase replacements. One of the first digital cameras I used back in 2001 was powered by 4 AA batteries and would suck up 10% of its power on each snapshot when both the LCD and the flash were used. Modern cameras are a lot more efficient, but I still recommend rechargable batteries. In addition to the savings for your wallet and the environment, some cameras with rechargeable batteries come with a feature called “battery stamina”. For example, the Sony DSCW50 can squeeze out over 350 pictures or an hour of video out of one full battery charge.
Shooting Modes
In addition to automatic point-and-shoot, a good camera will come with different shooting modes for different lighting environments, e.g. twilight, low-light, cloudy days, snow and the beach. Switch your camera to one of these specific shooting modes and the lens and flash will automatically adjust to compensate for the amount and quality of light that’s available.
Movie Mode
If you plan on shooting video with your camera, you should 1) make sure that your camera can capture video, and 2) make sure that it saves video in a standard, portable format such as mpeg. Many cameras will be labeled with the software their video files are compatible with – if Quicktime is one of the options then chances are the camera’s movie files are pretty widely supported.
Size
Camera features don’t have to be technological to be important. What size camera are you willing to carry around? Do you want something light that you can bring hiking, or are you in the market for a beefy camera with a monster zoom and resolution that will take near-professional quality shots? If you’re a casual photographer, a larger camera might discourage you from toting it along, but if you aspire to be a professional you’re most likely willing to trade in a tiny digi for a bigger device packed with power and carried in a camera bag instead of your pocket.
Software
Most digital cameras ship with a CD for installing their manufacturer’s proprietary photo manipulation/management software. Have I ever installed any of this software? Nope. Any digital camera worth its price tag should mount to your system as a removable drive, so you can browse to the camera and copy its files from My Computer (PC) or the Finder (Mac). A digital camera’s software should not be a deciding factor in your purchase, since you can either use what comes with the camera or download something like Picasa.
