Buying a new digital camera? There are a few questions to keep in mind when making the decision of which digital camera is best buying for you and what are the factors that you should keep in mind.
1. Determine what you need
A mistake I see some digital camera buyers making is that they get sucked into buying cameras that are beyond what they really need. Some questions to ask yourself before you go shopping:
- What is your budget?
- What do you need the camera for?
- Will you largely stay in auto mode or do you want to learn the art of photography?
- What experience level do you have with cameras?
- How important is size and portability to you?
- What type of features are you looking for? (long zoom, image stabilization, large LCD display etc)
- What type of photography will you be doing? (portraits, landscapes, macro, sports)
- What conditions will you be largely photographing in? (indoors, outdoors, low light, bright light)
Young man with digital camera shooting away
2. Megapixels are NOT everything
One of the features that you’ll see used to sell digital cameras is how many megapixels a digital camera has. In the old days when most cameras were at the lower end even 1 megapixel extra was significant. Nowadays most cameras are above 20 megapixel and if photography is just a hobby for you, that must be more than adequate for a decent home print. You must also remember that large images take up enormous amounts of space on memory cards and computers. Digital camera buying is not all about megapixels.
In fact the first question what you should put the seller is the size of the sensor not the megapixels packed in that small piece of silicon. Most common sizes : 1/3′, 1/2′, 2/3′, 4/3′, APSC, APSH, Full Frame. Most of today cameras use CMOS sensors but if you keen mostly on video look for a CCD sensor the rolling shutter won’t be so bad.
3. DSLR or Point and Shoot?
While digital SLRs are getting more affordable they are not for everyone. Keep in mind that they are usually bigger, heavier, harder to keep clean (if you’re changing lenses) and can be more complicated to operate than point and shoot. Of course there are many upsides to a DSLR the first will be the image quality. If you a seasonal snap-shooter using mostly the automatic feature, quality is not so important and portability is held at, high esteem, a point and shoot might be a better choice for you.
to be continued…..part 2
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