• Q:Which Vehicle should I Buy?
• A: I Don’t know- How much money do you have, what color,stick or automatic, do you want a used, new, economy, luxury car, do you need a race car to win the Indy 500, do you need tractor trailer truck or do you want a motorcycle?
• It’s the same thing with a buying a Digital camera. There’s a lot of choice, and you will need to define your requirements and budget. In fact you may even want a film camera!
• Digital cameras for consumers showed up several years ago. We seem to be in a period of rapid growth of the market. There is a lot of manufacturers and competition. New models are coming out every month! Prices are coming down.
• You could “wait till they perfect it” but how many missed pictures of Weddings, Graduations, family events etc are willing to give up?
• Digital cameras have the advantage of deleting bad shots in the camera; but a Digital camera won’t in and of itself make you a better photographer!
• It is the person behind the camera that as important if not more so than the camera itself.
• So I’m just going to bring up points to consider on buying a digital camera. You can then research all the cameras out there and buy what you need, want and can afford!
-- Low Cost <$100
-- Compact Digital's
-- Ultra Compact
-- “SLR” Like Cameras with non detachable lenses
-- True Digital SLR cameras with Interchangeable lenses
• These are designed to sell at very low cost, at least as far as digital cameras go. They are often adapted from low cost USB monitor top camera’s
• Many don’t work with Macs, often lack a LCD display so you can’t review the pictures, often lack removable storage, often lack a flash, and finally some are “fixed focus” meaning that trade off light sensitivity for a lenses that “almost” in focus say 8 feet to infinity. The lens can’t focus at all! They may be as little as 0.3 Megapixels-Advise- avoid these!
• Very popular, they go from ~ $150 to $800. Designed to go into a pocket or purse. Features go from the simple “point and shoot” to ones that add features for the more advanced user.
• These are a size of a credit card and as little as one half inch thick. No doubt there will be smaller ones in the future.
• You pay extra for the small size compared to compact cameras. They usually don’t put on too many controls, because they would get too small to operate.
• Small cameras are harder to hold still. Camera movement during picture taking is called “Camera shake”.
• These look like the 35mm film SLRs in size and appearance. They don’t have the through the lens (using a flip up mirror) viewfinder and removable lenses.
• These run $700 and up. They will often have more features, especially those that appeal to the advanced user. Sometimes called “Pro-sumer”
• These look like the 35mm film SLRs in size and appearance. They have the through the lens (using a flip up mirror) viewfinder and removable lenses.
• You can additional lenses to suit your needs. These are the same lenses as their film cameras.
• These start at $1800 or so, just for the body. Lenses are extra. Still a bit pricey for the regular consumer.
• AKA- getting your pictures out of your Digital Camera
-- Serial- A cable that connects to your Printer or Modem ports on older Macintosh's. This was slow method and since New Macs don’t have the serial ports (and Some New Windows machines too) this method is all but phased out on current cameras.
-- USB- the most common method today. You’ll need a USB Mac or add a USB card to an older Mac. OS 9 or OSX. (If you have OS 8.6 see Apples Knowledge Base article 31132 which has the download for 8.6 <mass storage>.
-- Firewire- The fastest, but as far as I know only one or two of the newest expensive DSLR’s have this.
-- You can also get card readers for removable storage, however these are mostly USB also.
• While some digital camera have a limited internal storage for photos, most have a removable storage card.
-- Compact Flash( CF)-One of the most popular. Sizes to 1 GB. Also type II compatible can use IBM micro Hard drives.
-- Smart Media (SM)- Also popular, a bit smaller than CF so compact cameras will often use these. Size to 128 MB. xD a emerging new standard will allow increase size but won’t be backwards compatible.
-- Multimedia/ Secure Digital- (MMC/SD) Two other standards not as popular as CF or SM. MMC are smaller storage size than SD. Check, many cameras that use MMC can use SD but not all.
• Memory Stick- A proprietary card used by Sony. Limited to 128 MB at present, Sony promises larger cards soon. Little or no aftermarket suppliers for this means it tend to be a bit more expensive per Megabyte.
• Ah! the number one buzzword for digital camera.
• Megapixel=One million pixels or picture elements.
-- 0.3 Megapixel= 640X480
-- 1 Megapixel= 1280X960 (~4X6 prints)
-- 2 Megapixel= 1600X1200 (~ 5X7 prints)
-- 3 Megapixel= 2048X1536 (~8 X10 prints)
-- 5 Megapixel= 2560X1920 (~cropped 8X10s & larger prints)
• Print size is some recommendations I’ve seen, more MP’s with a good printer will give a better print. If you can afford it go with 3 MP or above, these cameras are becoming commonplace.
• Yes the more megapixels the better the camera with the following caveats:
-- Don’t let the number of pixels be the sole reason to choose one camera over another.
-- There is the raw and effective pixel counts. Raw is the sensor itself, effective is what the camera uses. If you see one camera at 4.1 MP and another at 4 MP, you might just be seeing Raw and effective numbers being mixed.
-- On a advertisement for a low end camera I saw 1280 X960 “interpolated to one MP”. Watch out they “blew up” a smaller sensor output to 1 MP. Its not a real one MP camera.
• Optical zooms let you zoom in (telephoto) to help fill the shot with the object you want, or zoom out (wide angle) to get more of a big object into a shot.
• Don’t put a merit into “Digital zooms”! They throw away pixels from the picture. In photo editing programs you can zoom in thousands of times, the picture may be unusable but you can do it.
• Also look at the equivalent 35mm film focal length. In 35mm cameras 50mm is normal, 100mm and above telephoto, and 35mm and below wide angle. So beware a 6X zoom from 40-240mm may be worse than a 5X zoom from 28-140mm if wide angle shots are what you want!
• First focus range. Infinity is max. Check minimum. Is it 5 ft, 3ft, 2ft? For closer in photos, many cameras have “Macro” ranges for close in.
• Autofocus- Most camera have it. Check cameras review for these performance results-
-- Focus in low light
-- Speed to focus-this is a issue could be a second or more on some cameras. For fast placed action this can be an issue.
-- Focus lock-can you hold the focus on an object.
• Manual-This more advanced feature lets you take creative control, may be need in hard to focus scenes or extreme macro shots.
• None- Not good if you need to take pictures in low light.
• Built In- Good to have, in general don’t expect a lot of flash range; maybe 10-15 feet max.
• Provisions for External Flash- featured on high end cameras. Lets you attach more powerful flashes or even things like multiple flashes.
• If you have a “point and shoot” simple camera, let the camera deal with it. The camera will most of the time.
• More expensive cameras let you take control. Maybe you want to stop fast motion. Shutter priority lets you set a fast shutter speed and have the camera adjust the aperture. Aperture priority lets you set a aperture and the camera adjusts the shutter speed. AE lock lets you lock the exposure, important for example if you are stitching together several pictures.
• Some lower cost cameras will offer presets like “portrait” and “sports” to adjust the exposure
• Most cameras have an LCD display to review pictures. Be sure the display is big enough and bright enough for you. This is where hands on with the camera would be beneficial.
• Some camera have an additional display for camera settings and modes.
• Some higher end cameras have an electronic viewfinder (EVF), in place of the optical viewfinder. This can provide additional feedback. (flash, focus status etc.
• Digital cameras need batteries to run. Digital camera are notorious battery “eaters”.
• Some camera come with a built-in rechargeable battery- this can be good for battery life if a Li-Ion type is used, however they can be expensive to replace or buy for a spare.
• Some cameras use common AA or AAA batteries. You should use the highest capacity NiMh rechargeable you can. The advantage here is if the rechargeable batteries are run down,in a pinch you can use standard alkaline. Alkaline types do not last long in digital camera service.
• ISO speed: this number corresponds to film speed. Many digital camera have several settings. Slow ISO’s of 50 or 100 is standard. Higher ISO speeds of 200,400, 800 or more, give you the ability to shoot in lower light for the same exposure, but add noise to the picture as a tradeoff.
• Shutter Speeds and Max Aperture: Very fast shutter speeds (1/1000th or faster) are nice to stop action, but require good lighting to use. Big apertures (€ 2.8 and lower) are nice to get the most light, however low numbers are hard to get with zooms and telephoto settings.
• Menus and controls: These determine how easy it is to use the camera. Good menus and controls make the frequent adjustments easy to get to.
• Writing Speed: This determines how fast you can take the next shot. Unless the camera can store the present shot in a buffer, the picture data first needs to be written to the memory storage card.
-- CF note: if you are buying aftermarket CF cards, check that the speed is fast enough for your camera.
• Lens Protection: You don’t want to scratch the lens. Compact cameras may have a cover that goes over the lens. Others have a lens cap only. If you have the DSLR or DSLR like cameras, get a standard film type UV filter to protect the lens. ( UV filters may not be available for the very small physical sized lens of the compact cameras.)
• Look and feel- this is very subjective and again it pays to actually hold and try out the camera.
• Low End Cameras:
-- Self timers to let you get in the picture.
-- Date/Time stamps on photos
-- Tripod mount
-- TV video output
• Higher End Cameras:
-- Time Lapse photos
-- Remote Shutter releases
-- Voice Annotation
-- Limited time low res movies.
-- Multiple focus modes
-- Multiple exposure modes
-- Threads on front of lenses to attach filters
-- Exposure compensation
-- Exposure bracketing
-- Zoom and panning for LCD display
-- Filters and Effects
-- Histogram indicator
-- Custom settings memories
-- Multiple white balance modes
-- RAW data storage
• Yes- If your on a very tight budget and won’t be taking many pictures where development costs play a role. (ie the $5 disposable)
• You use Medium and Large format <view> cameras-digital is just getting competitive with medium film cameras, and view cameras are very specialized.
• Really tough shots were a film camera with fast lens, fast film (ISO1600+), quick focus might be the only way. {i.e. catching the next Magic Johnson at a night neighborhood basketball game with a single distant streetlamp for light!}
• Your “Film forever”.
• Traditional Photography store: these stores carry digital cameras as well as film cameras. You’ll likely find the most knowledgeable sales people here. Prices may be higher.
• Mass Merchandiser: May get better prices but are you getting knowledgeable sales people?
• Internet: Best Prices. Can’t try out camera beforehand. Chose reputable resellers. There are some that are not. Be sure the camera has a USA warranty with it. Some resellers get “gray market” cameras where the USA warranty is not valid!
• Digital Cameras:
-- Http://www.dpreview.com
-- Http://www.steves-digicams.com
-- Http://www.imaging-resource.com
-- Http://www.dcre source.com
• Good resource on Digital/film- aimed at landscape photography
-- Http://www.luminous-landscape.com
• Basic Photography:
-- Http://www.kodak.com/us/en/nav/takingPics.shtml