THE DIGITAL CAMERA BUYING GUIDE

Tuesday, October 25, 2005

A lot of people ask me the question - 'hey suggest me a good digital camera'. My normal response is that I am not very well verse with non-SLR digital cameras and hence would not be able to suggest what to buy. But I often manage to probe about their usage pattern and advice them on the features they should look for in the camera and the kind of camera they might really want to buy.

Here, I am trying to take a peek on those features that a digital camera buyer may want to look into and eventually help the buyer to zero in on a model. While I am trying to help the buyer on how to go about choosing a camera, I am refraining from making model suggestions.

Disclaimer: The camera models provided here are only meant to serve as examples of a camera with feature that the user would be interested in. I have not tested any of these cameras and do not know about the quality of them. The examples are only Canon cameras because of me being more familiar with them. Read the reviews in links provided below or elsewhere to ensure that the model you have zeroed in is actually a worthy buy.

CHOOSING PROCESS

First look at what type do you fall in and see if the features mentioned actually match what you are looking for. Look at the camera example given in the table(The way they are going, all these models may become obsolete very soon). Now look at other options that would provide similar features. I have given below link to a list of models from popular camera makers. Browse around and choose what is good for you. If your budget permits, you might want to go one or two level higher so it would be useful some time later. Also checkout dpreview's camera selection help based on the features you require. I personally suggest buying cameras from a maker who specializes in it than buying from a general consumer electronic company which makes everything and cameras too. The list here is of course not comprehensive.

- Canon cameras
- Fujifilm cameras
- Kodak cameras
- Konica Minolta cameras
- Nikon cameras
- Olympus cameras
- Panasonic cameras
- Samsung cameras
- Sony cameras

Choose at least 3-4 different cameras that match the feature set. Once you have zeroed in on them, read some reviews. Almost all cameras will have plenty of reviews available on the internet. Check some of these websites which make good reviews of all. Usually it is enough to check at dpreview since you are likely to get best and most comprehensive reviews.

- dpreview
- dcresource
- dcviews
- Steve's Digicam
- megapixels.net

Finally after reading the reviews, go ahead, do your research, zero in on one of your shortlists and enjoy taking pictures!

USAGE PATTERNS

My suggestions of camera features are usually based on the usage pattern of the likely buyer. The question I ask is - what do you want to use the camera for. I get different type of answers based on which I give my suggestions. The typical responses that I get are like this:

TYPE	DESCRIPTION
Type 1	I just need a camera. I could use it for any purpose. I think having a digital camera would be nice.
Type 2	for family photos, taking pictures with friends, in functions and parties or picnics. May be post card prints.
Type 3	I am headed for a vacation and want to take pictures. I don't have a camera with me now and would want something to record the places I went to
Type 4	for family photos etc, but I would love to shoot nature and scenery at times when I am out but I don't do it much or very seriously.
Type 5	for general usage of all kind. And I love taking prints and storing or displaying them.
Type 6	I want to learn photography and may want to spend some time on it. But I am not keen enough to invest on SLR cameras or fat lenses. I often travel and love to shoot landscapes, and who knows - may be some wildlife too. Prints will be nice.
Type 7	I have some extra money and would want to spend on a good, quality digital camera
Type 8	I am pretty serious about photography and would want to make those breath-taking images I often see in magazines or ompetitions. I think I want to put some good time out shooting with my camera.

Based on these patterns, I make advices on features they would want to have in their camera. I also made some research on some Canon models to find cameras that have the required features. Read disclaimer above before planning to choose the camera. The features I look for are directly related to taking pictures - such as the optical zoom, ISO settings and megapixels, but does not cover maintenance aspects such as battery life, storage medium and cost. Including these things would only make this post swell too much and confuse the reader who would be already inundated by the choices available. Below is a table that I arrived at based on the usage patterns of different type of users I described above. I have explained a bit about terms like resolution and ISO below in the article.

Important Note: The base standard for number of megapixels in a digital camera is fast increasing. New models are released and technology updates happen very frequently. The megapixel values and the model names in the table are indicative values at the time of writing and can become obsolete fast.

TYPE	RESOLUTION	ZOOM	ISO SETTING	OTHER DESIRABLES	SAMPLE MODEL
Type 1	3-4mp	1x - 2x	200 to 400	-	Powershot A510
Type 2	3-4.5mp	3x	100 to 800	video mode, portrait, landscape shooting modes. Auto ISO will be nice.	Powershot A510
Type 3	3-5mp	3x	100 to 400	landscape and portrait modes, long battery life, auto ISO	Powershot SD30
Type 4	4-5mp	4x - 6x	100 to 400	landscape, portrait modes	Powershot SD450
Type 5	4-6mp	3x - 5x	100 to 400	landscape, portrait modes
Type 6	5-8mp	up to 10x	100 to 800	Aperture, Shutter priority and manual modes, exposure compensation, white balance settings, auto ISO	Powershot Pro 1 Powershot S2 IS
Type 7	6-9mp	3x to 8x	-	good looks, sleek and small size, several shooting modes, spoil yourself with bluetooth or any more features you would like!	Powershot S70
Type 8	6-10mp	-	100 to 800	I strongly recommend type 8 people to go for SLRs. If you are really serious about photography, you will soon discover that an SLR is needed. Don't buy something else and spend money again to upgrade to an SLR	Canon EOS 350D Nikon D70s

The terms explained:

Resolution: Normally specified in megapixels, this indicates how big will be the pictures you are taking. The more megapixels you have, there will be more information in your image. So higher the resolution, bigger it looks on your screen and you can take larger prints. A 4mp camera is good enough to print up to A4 size.

Zoom: Manufacturers often mislead buyers by providing plenty of digital zoom. Keep in mind that optical zoom is what you should look at. The optical zoom indicated how much magnification you get from the lens. But in digital zoom, the image captured is simply cropped to make it appear big on your lcd, something that you could do yourself on the computer.

ISO: The ISO reading indicates how sensitive your camera is to the light. A higher ISO indicates you can take pictures at low light too, but at the expense of quality. Higher ISO is especially useful in taking pictures indoors or in parties. For film cameras, you would have to buy film with certain ISO ratings. But in digicams you can set this value when you are shooting(if the feature is available).