How To Choose The Perfect Digital Camera

As digital photography becomes more popular, the images become better quality, and cameras become more affordable it's no surprise that sales of digital cameras are exploding.

There are many different types of digital cameras to choose from and the one you choose what have a lot to do with what you plan on using the camera for.

Types of digital cameras

There are three basic types of cameras and this is the same whether you are shooting film or digital media. These three types are: point and shoot cameras, prosumer cameras and professional quality SLR cameras.

1. Point and shoot cameras operate fully automatically. These cameras pretty much do everything for you from choosing the correct exposure to whether a flash is needed.

2. Prosumer Cameras. These cameras are just a step up from the regular point she cameras in that they allow the photographer to have more options over control. These cameras often have various exposure modes which allow the photographer to have some control over the exposure.

3. Professional cameras allow a photographer to actually look through the lens. These are called single lens reflex cameras. What you see is what you get. You have full control over the exposure with these cameras but you can also shoot in full automatic mode or using various exposure modes.

Resolution

No matter what type of digital camera you decide to buy you'll need to make the decision about the resolution of the camera.

If you've ever shopped at one of the large electronics superstores you most certainly have had the opportunity of discussing digital cameras with their salespeople. They will usually lead you to believe that the most important thing when choosing a digital camera has to do with pixels. While this is important it is not the end all of digital image quality. Pixels are tiny squares that make up an image. Obviously the more squares are pixels the more detailed image will be.

Most of the digital cameras today produce images with at least 4 million pixels. Four megapixel images will produce up to 8 x 10 prints which look very nice. Most people do not make prints larger than 8x10 so these cameras should work fine.

Try different cameras before you choose

Did you know that you could take a memory card into the store with you and place in the camera you are looking at and take a few sample pictures? You can then take these pictures home to compare on your computer or make prints. Various cameras have very different image qualities even though they may have the same number of pixels. This is why it's important to compare.

Digital cameras are changing and improving faster than you can imagine. Every few months there will likely be one that is better at a cheaper price and you paid. Don't worry about it. If you take the time to choose a good digital camera you'll be making quality photographs that you and your family will enjoy for many years to come.

About the Author

Robert Michael is a writer for Filme Cameras which is an excellent place to find cameras links, resources and articles. For more information go to: www.filmecameras.com

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