Going digital?

What to look for when buying a digital camera.

Today’s digital cameras brim with bells and whistles, like the ability to add audio commentary to pictures or make short movies. Those are nice features, but your real-world needs may lean toward simpler uses, such as easily transferring pictures from your camera to an e-mail, Web site, or property flier.

Most cameras on the market will perform the above tasks adequately, but knowing a bit about what differentiates one camera from the next enables you to match your specific needs to the camera–and price–that best suits you. Below are several important features that influence digital-camera performance.

Resolve to take sharp pictures

Before you do anything, decide how many picture elements ("pixels") your camera needs to have, because the number of pixels in a camera’s sensor largely determines its price. The more pixels a camera has, the sharper the images it produces. Camera resolutions typically range from one-megapixel at the low end to six-megapixel in professional-grade equipment.

What are you going to do with your digital images? If you plan on printing posters, you need more pixels than if you’re only putting your images online. A one-megapixel camera works fine if you want to take thumbnail-sized listing photos for the Web, but enlarged images won’t look good on fliers and may appear grainy if sent via e-mail.

A three-megapixel camera should meet most of your professional needs. It provides plenty of detail for Web sites and e-mails, while also making images sharp enough for fliers and other moderately sized printouts–without generating huge file sizes that slow down e-mails or fill up storage devices.

Remove your memory

Like their film counterparts, digital cameras have finite storage space. However, the number of images you can store is limited to memory on a card rather than exposures on a strip of film. Depending on the resolution of your images–high, medium, or low–you can fit few or many pictures on your camera, with high-resolution images
occupying the most memory.

That memory usually comes in the form of removable memory cards that store anywhere from 8MB to 512MB of data. A typical two-megapixel camera can store about 24 high-resolution images on a 32MB card. Most cameras include a low-capacity memory card–8MB–that you’ll want to upgrade immediately, unless you want to be limited to only a few pictures at a time. Remember to factor in the cost of a larger capacity card when calculating purchase price.

Avoid cameras that use non-removable storage, because that limits your ability to add memory as needed. While other storage options like floppy disks and CDs are available on some cameras, memory cards are the most prevalent format.

Take a close look

Most digital cameras offer the flexibility of a zoom lens, either as an optical zoom or a digital zoom. Optical zooms, which resemble those found on film cameras, are superior to digital zooms, which magnify the center of the frame without actually increasing picture detail, resulting in grainy images. A 3x optical zoom on a digital camera compares to a 35-105mm lens on a film camera, and gives you the flexibility to shoot landscapes and close ups.

You can frame your digital images very accurately using a camera’s LCD, a small screen located on the back of the camera. Although an LCD consumes a lot of battery power, the screen is a must-have on any digital camera, because it enables you to instantly review the pictures you’ve taken. If you don’t like a picture, retake it; this not only ensures you get the best possible image, but also saves memory when you delete shots you don’t want.

Other factors influence the cost and quality of digital cameras, but these provide an informed starting point. Decide what you’ll do with the camera, which features you can’t live without, and how much you can spend. Maybe you’ll have enough in your budget to add some bells and whistles that are just plain fun.

Photo © Creatas.

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