When was the last time you made a digital camera purchase without wondering if you made the right choice? The wide price range of digital cameras available at nearly any retail or online store is staggering. Do you know what features are a must have and which ones are optional? How do you know which camera is right for you? Choosing the digital camera that is best for your needs will be a piece of cake with the help of this and other articles in my series.
The exhaustive list of digital camera features are enough to make anyone's head spin. Everything from exposure settings, aperature, ISO to zoom magnification and image stabilization. Yet that only covers a small handful of things you'll need to evaluate. Let's simply everything and look at exactly what you need to know to help make your decision. Several other articles in this digital camera feature series will help you find just the camera you are looking for.
Automatic exposure control is a fairly standard feature on nearly every digital camera, including high end SLRs. This means that the shutter speed and aperature, or opening for light is automatically adjusted for the available light coming into the lens. But if you would like more control over the settings yourself, look for a program mode that allows you to control the shutter or aperature and set priority. Finally, it's a rare digital camera that allows you to have full manual control, but if you are an old-school film photographer, this might be exactly the mode that makes you feel most comfortable.
Borrowing basic physics, a small digital camera is able to incorporate several lenses or lens elements to create zooming ability. A camera with basic zoom features is usually about 3x zoom, or a focal length of 35mm to 105mm. This range allows you to take nice "snapshot" photos along with zooming in to frame elements that are far away from you. If you are interested in sports, portrait or nature photography however, you'll want even more zoom...look for 135mm to 300mm and greater lenses. Typically this range will be found in a digital SLR, rather than a compact, "pocket" camera.
Many consumers are a little confused by optical versus digital zoom. Digital zoom takes the existing light information that is entering the camera's lens and simply enlarges it, much like you can do on your computer after the picture is taken. But if you've ever tried to enlarge a copy of a photo on your computer and found it to be fuzzy or undetailed then you've experienced the limitations of digital zoom. Optical zoom on the other hand, allows you to gather more light from your subject and more detail is captured in the digital image. This allows you more flexibility and freedom to post process images on your computer or to enlarge photos for prints.
Selecting the right digital camera for your needs is always fraught with confusion and sometimes even anxiety. But by understanding the underlying features and knowing which ones will benefit your photography, you can make the most educated decision possible. Making a listing of the features you think you can't live without, and allowing others to not interfere with your decision making, will help you both purchase the right camera for your needs along with saving money by not spending for features you'll never use.
The exhaustive list of digital camera features are enough to make anyone's head spin. Everything from exposure settings, aperature, ISO to zoom magnification and image stabilization. Yet that only covers a small handful of things you'll need to evaluate. Let's simply everything and look at exactly what you need to know to help make your decision. Several other articles in this digital camera feature series will help you find just the camera you are looking for.
Automatic exposure control is a fairly standard feature on nearly every digital camera, including high end SLRs. This means that the shutter speed and aperature, or opening for light is automatically adjusted for the available light coming into the lens. But if you would like more control over the settings yourself, look for a program mode that allows you to control the shutter or aperature and set priority. Finally, it's a rare digital camera that allows you to have full manual control, but if you are an old-school film photographer, this might be exactly the mode that makes you feel most comfortable.
Borrowing basic physics, a small digital camera is able to incorporate several lenses or lens elements to create zooming ability. A camera with basic zoom features is usually about 3x zoom, or a focal length of 35mm to 105mm. This range allows you to take nice "snapshot" photos along with zooming in to frame elements that are far away from you. If you are interested in sports, portrait or nature photography however, you'll want even more zoom...look for 135mm to 300mm and greater lenses. Typically this range will be found in a digital SLR, rather than a compact, "pocket" camera.
Many consumers are a little confused by optical versus digital zoom. Digital zoom takes the existing light information that is entering the camera's lens and simply enlarges it, much like you can do on your computer after the picture is taken. But if you've ever tried to enlarge a copy of a photo on your computer and found it to be fuzzy or undetailed then you've experienced the limitations of digital zoom. Optical zoom on the other hand, allows you to gather more light from your subject and more detail is captured in the digital image. This allows you more flexibility and freedom to post process images on your computer or to enlarge photos for prints.
Selecting the right digital camera for your needs is always fraught with confusion and sometimes even anxiety. But by understanding the underlying features and knowing which ones will benefit your photography, you can make the most educated decision possible. Making a listing of the features you think you can't live without, and allowing others to not interfere with your decision making, will help you both purchase the right camera for your needs along with saving money by not spending for features you'll never use.
About the Author:
If you are currently shopping for Olympus digital cameras, be sure to read more of Adrian's reviews at Olympus EPL 2 Review. Ease the anxiety of choosing by laying out the straight dope, such as Olympus EPL1 vs EPL2 before you buy.. Also published at Digital Camera Lens Mysteries Exposed.
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