Digital Camera, have questions

[MemoryMakers2669]

When buying a new one, what is the most important feature I should look for?

 

[kat3668]

I would have to say that megapixwls is very important .... get one 4 or higher if possible and get an optical zoom ... hope this helps

 

[Dana49]

Check out this website. It should answer all of your questions.
http://www.steves-digicams.com/

 

[CleveRocks]

When buying a new one, what is the most important feature I should look for?

I'd love to answer your question, but I can't know what's most important to YOU.

For instance, take size. Do you want something that you can easily skip into and out of your pocket? Do you want something slightly bigger that can kinda fit in your pocket but is easier and more stable to hold when snapping a picture? Or doesn't it matter at all? A relatively big digital camera can have two features smaller ones can't: big-time optical zoom, and SLR. OPTICAL ZOOM is the magnification you get from the lens itself. SLR means that what you see on the screen is EXACTLY what will appear in the photo (a regular "point and shoot" camera uses a viewfinder that gives you only an estimate of what will appear in your photo). The other major advantage to an SLR is there is no delay between pushing the shutter button and taking the picture. Point and shoot cameras have a delay, and if you really dig you can find the delay time for each camera you're looking at. There are no small SLRs, and the biggest optical zoom I saw in pocket-sized cameras is 4x.

My old standby camera is a 35 mm film SLR. WAY too big for my pocket, but I decided that when I bought a digital camera it would have to be more convenient (that is, be able to fit in my pocket), so what I looked for in that size was the most megapixels and the biggest optical zoom available in that size. I'll get to megapixels in a minute. Back to zooms for a minute. IGNORE "DIGITAL ZOOM." It's a wothless statistic, in my opinion. It means that whatever image the camera sees, the camera's computer then zooms into it. Imagine getting closer and closer to your TV screen until your nose is touching it -- you're zooming in but the quality of the picture suffers, right? That's digital zoom.

Megapixels. The higher the number of megapixels, the sharper your image can be. This usually doesn't matter so much for regular snapshots (as long as the megapixels aren't TOO low), but it can matter a lot if you want to enlarge your photos OR are going to crop a portion of the picture and then enlarge that portion to make a "normal" sized photo. Think of a pixel as a dot (because it is!). You have one piece of paper filled with 2 million dots (2 megapixels) and another filled with 6 million dots (6 megapixels). The piece of paper filled with 6 million dots will have a MUCH sharper image. Imagine if therre were only 10 dots or 1000 dots -- if you think about it I think you can intuitively understand that the more dots, the sharper the image. But also, the more megapixels the more expensive the camera. Here is one of those trade-offs that you have do decide.

Size, optical zoom, SLR/point and shoot, megapixels -- those are your major variables. There are some minor ones, too. I was choosing between 2 cameras that were almost identical, except that one used a "special" battery and the other used size AA batteries (it came with rechargables, but it's perfectly OK to just pop in regular alkaline AAs). Everything else being equal, I went with the convenince of owning a camera that I can buy batteries for anywhere in a pinch, rather than having to wait hours for a "special" battery to recharge. But for me, I wouldn't have sacrificed anything I considered really meaningful in order to have a camera that uses AAs. There's also the issue of size of display on the back of the camera. Mine has a 2 inch display, some cameras in the same range have a 2.5 or 3 inch display; I valued other features more than screen size, but you might prioritize a bigger screen.

For the record, I have a Fuji FinePix E550, pretty much pocket-sized, 6.3 megapixels, 4x optical zoom, $315 on sale when I bought it last March. I don't like the delay between pushing the shutter and taking the picture, but since every non-SLR has that (as far as I know), I can't complain. I love the pics I've taken.

There are likely numerous websitrs that can help you consider all of these variables on paper (I used www.consumerreports.org, I think a 1-month subscription costs $2.95), but you still need to get to a store and HOLD and practice with the models you're thinking of.

ENJOY!

-- Eric