If you’ve never been around digital cameras, they can be rather intimidating at first. Buzzwords like “megapixels” and “optical zoom” help to build a language barrier between new users and the industry, and sometimes it’s hard to understand what exactly you’re buying. In order to help you better understand the best digital camera choice for you, here is a brief overview of the major elements of a digital camera.
The Difference Between SLRs and Automatic Cameras
A digital SLR operates the same as a non-digital SLR camera except that it exposes a light sensitive sensor instead of exposing film. If you pick a digital SLR, you will be able to manually adjust settings like shutter speed, aperture, focus and ISO. Generally speaking, digital SLRs will provide the highest quality images possible.
Point and shoot cameras are the more popular and more commonly seen digitals with large LCD screens on the back that require only one button press. Point and shoot cameras take lower quality pictures (although not by a lot) but provide a lot less customizable options. On the flip side, however, they are great because of their small portable size and ease of use. And if you’re not planning to print out pictures and put them in 8×10 picture frames, then the quality difference is minimal.
All About Mega Pixels
One of the most important features camera manufacturers talk about is the number of mega pixels. But what are megapixels anyway?
Mega pixels are the way manufacturers count the pixels in an image. A one mega pixel camera means that the camera will take pictures with 1 million pixels. You can think of them as an image’s resolution.
So which megapixel value is right for you? It really depends upon what you want to do with you pictures. For most users, who wish only to shoot a few photographs and upload them to their website or give them to friends in relatively small picture frames, anything in the 2MP to 7MP range is absolutely fine. If you’re going to be blowing your work up to larger sizes, you should work with cameras that shoot at higher resolutions (10MP and above). The larger you want your photo, the more important the mega pixel value.
The Difference Between Digital and Optical Zooms
Many digital cameras feature both digital and optical zoom. Optical zoom is the distance the camera is capable of zooming using its lens, and the digital zoom is how far the camera can “fake” it from there. Basically, optical zoom will magnify the subject in the same way a zoom lens would, while digital zoom simply blows up a part of the image. One good example of a digital zoom, is when you see on tv the video footage from a security camera that shows the pixilated and blurry face of a robber.
Digital zoom, for the most part, can be completely disregarded at the sales counter. Images created using digital zoom have low quality and look pretty terrible, so if you’re not close enough to catch it with optical zoom it’s best to either get closer or shoot with what you have.
Buying a new digital camera, doesn’t have to be an intimidating experience if you know what you want. Just be honest about what you need and expect from your camera, as well as what your price range is, and go from there. If you simply select a digital camera that meets your needs (instead of buying a camera with an overwhelming selection of features) you will almost always be happy with your choice. If you’re not sure what digital camera is right for you, you’re better off starting with a more basic camera and then upgrading later if you need to.