Tips on Buying a digicam

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Choosing a digital camera can be intimidating. Study the sales literature, read the reviews, talk to the camera salespeople, and you'll come away with a head full of technical jargon, but probably not much idea of what camera to buy. Even if you're able to pick up on some of the more important features, and wade through the quagmire of megabytes, megapixels, and mega-headaches, you'll quickly learn that different camera manufacturers use different terms for the same thing -- pretty much leaving you right back where you started!

Recognizing this conundrum, we asked Dave Etchells, proprietor of The Imaging Resource website (www.imaging- resource. com), to boil away all the marketing hype and tell you exactly what you need to know to waltz confidently up to the counter (or mousepad) and buy your first digicam.

Read this, and you'll be able to size up any digital camera in 10 minutes or less, saving yourself hours of shopping time at the camera stores and online retailers (and who has time to waste these days?).

Resolution: How big can I print it?
One of the first buzzwords you'll come across when shopping for a digicam is "megapixel." This is a measure of how many "pixels," or tiny bits of information, the camera's image sensor uses to split-up and then reassemble the picture. In a perfect world, the megapixel rating would give you a good indication of the quality of the camera (the higher the megapixel number, the smaller the pixels, and the better the resolution).

Alas, this isn't always the case, as there are many factors that affect camera quality and resolution. Some manufacturers have confused the issue even more by packing more pixels into the final image than were originally created.
Despite these inconsistencies, we can still make some useful generalizations from the camera's pixel resolution, or megapixel rating. For example, we know that the number of megapixels produced by a camera helps determine the maximum size prints you can make from its images.

A 1-megapixel camera makes prints as large as 4 x 6 inches,
a 1.3- to 1.5-megapixel camera makes 5 x 7-inch prints,

and so on. Even if your intent is to only e-mail your images or post them on a website, we recommend that you buy a camera with at least enough pixel resolution to obtain a good-looking 4 x 6-inch print. (It's been our experience that most people end up wanting to make prints of their favorite photos at some time or another.) By the same token, be realistic about what you're likely to need. If 99% of your film camera photos are 4 x 6-inch prints, don't spend $1,000 for the latest and greatest 3-megapixel model, when a 1-megapixel camera will do just fine.
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The Camera Lens: Fixed, Zoom, or Digital Zoom?After resolution, the next most important consideration when choosing a camera is the lens. To take good pictures, a camera has to have quality optics (glass, no plastic), and it has to offer the flexibility you need to creatively photograph your subject. The most common error beginning photographers make when taking pictures is to stand too far away from their subjects. This can (and usually does) result in small subjects that are difficult to identify, centered in the middle of a lot of dead space. It's not always the photographer' s fault, a lot depends on the flexibility of the camera's lens system.

Like inexpensive film cameras, many low-priced digicams use fixed-focal- length lenses, that is, the lens remains stationary and always covers the same angle of view. The only way you can change the framing of your picture with a fixed-focal- length lens is to back away or move closer. While this may seem like a reasonable method of composition, there are some distinct disadvantages. For example, you can't always get as close as you want to your subject; and when you can get up close, most fixed-focal- length lenses are wide-angle, which at very close range, will distort a subject's features -- noses grow larger, eyes move farther apart, and faces appear to bow in toward the camera (not the best results for intimate close-ups of your friends and family).

A zoom lens allows you to get really close to people, without invading their personal space, and it will eliminate wide-angle distortion. You can change the framing of your picture (i.e. adjust the distance between you and your subject) by "zooming" in and out from a wide-angle to a telephoto view, or anywhere in between. Also, zoom lenses tend to shorten the distance (at least optically) between faraway objects, so you can photograph a horse grazing in a nearby field, compose the image to include a faraway tree, and the two subjects will appear much closer to each other than they really are. It does wonders for pulling your picture together.

Zoom lenses are commonly referred to by their zoom ratio, which is the difference between their focal length at the widest angle setting and maximum telephoto. For example, a zoom ratio of 1:3, or 3x, means that the maximum zoom range is three times further than the closest wide-angle setting. The most common zoom ratio for digicams is 3x, but some compact cameras have only a 2x zoom, and some larger models have zoom ratios as high as 10x. A good zoom lens typically adds about $100 to the cost of a camera. That's a fair chunk of money, but I'd happily trade a megapixel worth of resolution to get a good zoom lens.

Don't be fooled by the terms "digital zoom" or "digital telephoto"! A digital zoom is not a true zoom lens, it merely crops into your image, throwing away the information around the edges, and thereby increasing the apparent magnification of the lens. The end result is decreased resolution, soft-looking images, and an anomaly called stair-stepping, or jaggies, which are basically pixels that have been magnified so much, that they appear as stairsteps along the edges of your subject. So be sure that your camera specifications include an "optical" zoom lens, which increases image magnification through the lens itself, not "digital" zoom, which uses the camera's software to make the enlargement.

Note: That doesn't necessarily mean you should avoid digital zooms altogether, just don't be misled into thinking that a camera has a zoom lens unless it says zoom lens on the package. The magic buzzwords are "Optical Zoom" or "Zoom Lens." If you don't see one of those terms, and you want a zoom lens, don't buy the camera!

Size/Feel Factor - Do I care if it fits in my pocket?

Image Storage: What are my options?
Computer Connection: USB or Serial?

Batteries, Batteries? Do I need batteries?
Bells & Whistles - Do I really need them?

Buying a "Starter" Camera - What about a used model?
Should I wait? (Probably not...)

So Many Choices! Where should I buy?
For all of the above questions ... go here ..
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The Imaging Resource editors have put together the following "Top Ten list For Sizing Up a Digicam" to help you in your search here
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