How to Choose Digital Camera

When searching for a digital camera there are a few factors that I encourage people to keep in mind when they buy a digital camera (while there are 9 ’steps’ they are not necessarily a sequence you follow).



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 do you need the camera for?


• 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)


• 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?


• What type of features are you looking for? (long zoom, image stabilization, large LCD display etc)


• How important is size and portability to you?


• What is your budget?

Just ask these questions to yourself before you go to buy a camera and you’ll be in a much better position to make a decision when you see what’s on offer. You’ll probably find the sales person asks you this question anyway - so to have thought about it before hand will help them help you get the right digital camera.



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.



A few years back, the megapixel rating of cameras was actually quite important as most cameras were at the lower end of today’s modern day range and even a 1 megapixel increase was significant.



These days, with most new cameras coming out with at least 5 megapixels, it isn’t so crucial. In fact at the upper end of the range it can actually be a disadvantage to have images that are so large that they take up enormous amounts of space on memory cards and computers.



One of the main questions to ask when it comes to megapixels is ‘Will you be printing shots’? If so - how large will you be going with them? If you’re only printing images at a normal size then anything over 4 or so megapixels will be fine. If you’re going to start blowing your images up you might want to pay the extra money for something at the upper end of what’s on offer today.



3. Keep in mind the ‘extras’



Keep in mind as you look at cameras that the price quoted may not be the final outlay that you need to make as there are a variety of other extras that you might want (or need) to fork out for including:

• Camera Case


• Memory Cards


• Spare Batteries/Recharger

For DSLR cameras

• Filters (and other lens attachments)


• Lenses


• Tripods/Monopods


• External Flashes


• Reflectors

Keep in mind about the discounts that some retailers give when buying the whole kit.