Guide to Buying a Digital Camera
If you’re one of those people who have never owned a digital camera in their life, go to a corner and cry for ten minutes. Then get back to this list before hopping into your car to purchase one.
•Find out what you’ll be using it for. Walking into a camera store can be quite overwhelming—hundreds of cameras ranging from the size of a credit card to as wide as a computer manual. It may be cute to carry around a sleek little red digicam, but you will have to consider what you’re actually going to use it for.
Do you need a compact one to store in your handbag? Are you planning to
take professional photos for work? Does the number of features matter to you? Do you want a camera with manual functions? You don’t want to bring home a camera that doesn’t satisfy your needs, or purchase one with so many features that you won’t be able to use.
•Be familiar with camera specs. All those fancy words on the box might make it look like your wallet sized camera will turn you into a professional shutterbug. Mega Pixel is the maximum resolution per photo--the higher the MP, the bigger the prints you can get without it looking blurry. If you’re only planning to exchange photos on the internet, then a 2MP camera is fine. Optical Zoom and Digital Zoom are two different things—most pros snub Digital Zoom, since this is actually a software function that crops the image, which makes it lose its quality.
Read the full digital camera article by Maui Reyes.
•Find out what you’ll be using it for. Walking into a camera store can be quite overwhelming—hundreds of cameras ranging from the size of a credit card to as wide as a computer manual. It may be cute to carry around a sleek little red digicam, but you will have to consider what you’re actually going to use it for.
Do you need a compact one to store in your handbag? Are you planning to
take professional photos for work? Does the number of features matter to you? Do you want a camera with manual functions? You don’t want to bring home a camera that doesn’t satisfy your needs, or purchase one with so many features that you won’t be able to use.
•Be familiar with camera specs. All those fancy words on the box might make it look like your wallet sized camera will turn you into a professional shutterbug. Mega Pixel is the maximum resolution per photo--the higher the MP, the bigger the prints you can get without it looking blurry. If you’re only planning to exchange photos on the internet, then a 2MP camera is fine. Optical Zoom and Digital Zoom are two different things—most pros snub Digital Zoom, since this is actually a software function that crops the image, which makes it lose its quality.
Read the full digital camera article by Maui Reyes.
