Choosing The Right Digital Camera For You
By Gordon Brenzil, Fri Dec 9th

Let's get something straight right out of the box. If you'relooking to buy a new digital camera, you don't really have to bean expert in pixels and mega pixels and all that kind of stuff.If you expect to find that kind of deep technical discussionhere, you're in the wrong place. Actually, there's a whole lotof stuff you don't really need to know before tackling thedaunting task of choosing the right digital camera for you.First of all, forget all the high-tech jargon. It's mostly a lotof sales hype anyway. Choosing a good unit is pretty simplereally...pretty much all you have to remember is that the higherthe mega pixel rating on the front of the camera, the biggerpicture you can make without it breaking up into little chunks(called pixels) and most likely the more cash it's likely goingto pry out of your pocket. Each model has an array oftechno-widgets that go by different names but they all have thesame basic focus, to help you take a better picture. I have aquick (and admittedly simplistic) overview of the pixel story.The shot on the left on my web pagehttp://www.great-nature-photography.com/digital-cameras.html isone I took with a high pixel rating and the one on the right waswith a much lower rating. They've been enlarged way beyond whatyou would normally do, but I do have a point to make here. Ifyou look carefully you can see there's a terrific difference inthe way they look or, in the 'resolution'. The image on theright has already broken up into small pieces (pixels) (I hope)you can readily see. The picture on the left was magnifiedseveral times more than the one on the right which should giveyou an idea of how big you can enlarge it and still retain afairly decent result. By the way, these shots are of a very,very small piece of a picture I took of snapdragons in our frontyard. A camera with a 5.0 mega pixel rating or higher canproduce a decent 16X20 print but one with a 2.0 mega pixelrating or lower should be restricted to a maximum of 4X6 prints.For the most part, you won't be happy with pictures any largerthan 4X6 from the lower rated camera. Okay, Let's Pick ACamera... Well, I have my favorites and my not-so favorites.When I looked at all the digital available, I was morethan a little astounded at the vast selection of availableequipment. It seems that every company that’s ever heard theword “computer” has jumped on the bandwagon. It seems they laytheir hands on some lenses, wrap a computerized box around them,added a few techno-widgets and bingo, instant digital camera!Where did I start? Well, I went back to my tried and true methodof buying a film camera that I talk about later. It’s alwaysworked for me and didn’t let me down this time either. Mypersonal digital camera finally wound up to be an OlympusC-5050. By the way, Olympus did not do themselves or theircustomers any favors in my opinion by dumping the f1.8 lens onthe C-5060. I chose this camera for the fast f1.8 lens and easeof use. I'm lazy at best and wanted a unit that's going to domost of the work for me while leaving me with the option ofdoing what I want to do when I want to do it. This unit has allthe automatic features I'll ever need but I also have theability to set up the camera completely manually. I can still dominimum depth-of-field work among other things. I never want tocompletely lose control to a mindless computer although they dohave their uses at times. The first thing I did after I openedthe box was print off the user manual - all 265 pages of it! Ifigured I had done my duty by it and promptly ignored it. Aftervery quickly killing my first two sets of “high-capacity”alkaline batteries, I sprung for a couple sets of Nickel-MetalHydride (Ni-MH) rechargeables. Not only did they last longer butit was a heck of a lot cheaper than replacing the alkalinesevery darn time I picked up the camera. It boils me to have toadmit this but I actually had to go back to the user manual. Iwasn't getting the results I wanted and there was also some'stuff' on the camera I had no clue about using. The moral ofthis story is that you're gonna have to at least have a noddingacquaintance with your user manual. Sorry, but that's just theway it is. Back to choosing a camera... Throughout the yearsI've learned that if a camera 'fit' my hand it worked well forme. It may sound a little strange at first but just think aboutit. If you're handling something that feels awkward, yourresults are going to look like it. I had a Mamiya RB-67 for alot of years. It was a big, ungainly unit but it was a good'fit' for me and produced a great image. I also used aHasselblad for quite a while but I much preferred the Mamiya andit gave me better results than the Hasselblad. (Don't tellHasselblad lovers I said this, they'll kill me!) So, rule ofthumb...if it fits your hand nicely, if the main controls arehandy to your fingers, if it has the mega pixel number you wantand falls within your budget, you can be pretty confident thiswill do the job you want it to do. Oh yes, if it's a brandyou've never heard of before, be very, very wary. It may workwell and it may not. If it doesn't, there may not be any techbackup for you to be able to access. The major camera companiesspend lots of money developing new photo technologies. Althoughthe latest techno-widgets go by different names, they all havethe same goal, to make your pictures look as good as possible.Pretty well every company in the world that has even come closeto producing a good digital camera has gotten into the "SLRWars". Single lens reflex dominated the photo market foryears until digital technology hit the market. Because of designand price limitations, SLR technology has not been widelyavailable in digital until the last year or so. Thefurious pace of technological developments has completelyovertaken the market and even professional photographers arebeing boggled trying to keep up. Remember the old Nikon F2? Itwas the major link in the Nikon chain of professional camerasfor over 10 years! This was pretty much the norm until thecomputer hit the photographic industry big time. Changes used tocome slowly and deliberately and it wasn't hard to keep up withthe latest and greatest when major new developments came alongonly two or three times in a decade. The battle now is toproduce digital that operate faster, can be sold cheaperand will produce a better picture. Severe competition

evenexists within the same corporate structure where teams ofdevelopers do their utmost to 'outgun' other camera designerswho work in the same building as they do. Nikon has a distinctadvantage over many of the other manufacturers in that owners ofsome of the older series of Nikon lenses can use them with thenew digital bodies, a tremendous dollar saving to thephotographer. Most of this is aimed at the professionalphotographer. But, with technology changing as rapidly as it is,a camera technology that sells for several thousands of dollarstoday will undoubtedly become available to people like you andme in the next couple of years for a whole lot less money. Oneof the hardest jobs a new camera buyer will have is determinewhich of the new techno-widgets does the best job and is thebest value. One thing to keep in mind about camera features…theyall have the same job and that’s to help you take a betterphoto. Picture this if you will. If you lined up 10 fromdifferent manufacturers, each with similar basic features, tookthe same picture with each, I think even the cameramanufacturers would have a tough time picking out which of theresulting photos came from their units. Getting feedback fromall kinds of users is one very excellent use of newsgroups.Serious photographers, amateur and professional both, love totalk about their latest 'toys'. This is a good way to spend timeand a good place to ask questions and get (sometimes)intelligent answers. Don't wait until you've made the investmentto start doing your homework. Another rule of thumb, if you'rehappy with a particular brand name already, my suggestion is tostick with it. You'll probably be more satisfied in the longrun. Now, having said all that, there are currently five searchengine 'favorite' companies among the people looking forinformation on the Internet, Sony, Canon, Olympus, Kodak andNikon in this order of popularity. Understanding how to set yourcamera's resolution is absolutely vital. There's no shortcut andthere's no way around it. This is the core of taking a goodreproducible photograph. If, for instance, your camera is setfor 240X360, you can forget making any kind of decent printabove a 'thumbnail' size. The low-end are not a bargainif you're looking for good photo reproduction. Labs areconstantly arguing with customers who submit low resolutiondigital images from a cheap camera for printing and then aren'thappy with the results. They simply don't understand why theirpictures are so lousy. Lenses and the type of digital imagerecording technology are also critical factors. I won't get intothe technical details of why but I will suggest you considerspending in the $250 to $400 range if you want something thatwill satisfy you. Let’s spend a few minutes on lenses. Prettywell all of the digital these days have a form of zoomlens. Most of the higher-end have the capability for theuser to add either an external telephoto or wide-angle lens.Depending on the type of photography you want to do willdetermine whether or not this is of value to you. One thing towatch out for. The higher end have very good glasslenses. It’s part of what you're paying for. The lower-end unitshave progressively less expensive lenses and consequently, alower image definition. There are both optical and digital zoomcapabilities on digital cameras. The term "optical zoom" simplymeans you're using the glass lenses to do the magnification."Digital zoom" on the other hand simply increases the size ofthe pixels to make the image larger. For reasons of imageclarity, the optical zoom is a far better way to go. One lastnote - if you run across the "best deal in town" on a verylow-priced name brand camera, check to make sure it isn't badlyout-dated. Buying well-priced clearance stock is okay if itisn't too old. In this computer age, pretty well anything over ayear old is considered 'old technology'. As new technologies aredeveloped the price keeps going down so you could actually bemoney ahead by investing in the 'latest and greatest'. Alwayskeep in mind the old adage that 'you usually get what you payfor. If you go to a 'box' store looking for the best price,don't expect service. The folks there simply don't know whatthey're selling. Their job is to move as much merchandise asthey can as quickly as possible. It's not to give you advice. Goto the Internet to get the latest data directly from themanufacturers. It changes very, very quickly. When you do this,try to climb through all the sales hype to get to the 'meat' ofwhat the are all about. Newsgroups can also a veryexcellent source of advice for 'newbies'. Most people will bevery happy to give you their personal opinion of what you shouldbuy. Just remember, they won't usually tell you what thedownside to their purchase is. They don't want to look less than'expert' in your eyes. Do your own homework. This is aninvestment you probably won't repeat for several years. Aspecialty camera store on the other hand gives the buyer bothservice and product and usually very well. Keep in mind that thespecialty store personnel are quite often very highly trainedand will probably be well prepared to help you find the bestequipment for you and will also give you a 'leg-up' in gettingstarted using it. We need to spend a couple of moments onstorage media. Whatever size media card you stick in your camerawill determine the number of pictures you can take and store.It's like a roll of film, the bigger the roll the more picturesyou can take. Digital images are no different. The greater thenumber of available megabytes (Mb), the higher the number ofpictures you can take. A word of caution - never, never, neverleave your media card in a photo lab. The incidence of loss ishigh and most labs won't replace lost cards. Quite frankly, Idon't blame them. Far, far too many false claims have been madeand labs now refuse to take any responsibility for your memorycards. That’s it for this one. Keep your film dry your lensesclean!

You can see more at: http://www.great-nature-photography.com

About the author:Gordon has spent well over 30 years in the photo industry. Inaddition to ownng his own photo lab and professional studio formany years, he has also taught.