What to Look for in a Digital Camera
We tend to get mesmerized when we see those beautiful photographs captured by the veterans of the field. It's a common myth that a costly camera is the key to good photographs. The camera does play a crucial role, but it need not necessarily be the one with a higher end price tag. The key to good photographs is the right digital camera, and not the costliest one. Owing to megapixel myth, along with the ignorance about the importance of features like zoom and exposure settings, you end up buying a camera which doesn't qualify for your requirements - and the end result is bad photographs.
Features to Look for in a Digital Camera
The foremost question to ask yourself is what you need if for. If you are just an amateur photographer, who wants to capture those pleasant memories of life, you don't necessarily need to go for a 12 megapixel camera. In fact, a few megapixel, easy-to-use digital camera would be more than enough for you. On the other hand, if you want to pursue a career in photography, you will have to go for a higher end camera, which is compatible to other accessories, like the lenses and editing software. Once you have taken your basic requirements into consideration, you can go through the comparison chart, and check for the following features.
Zoom: Zoom is by far one of the most under-rated feature of a digital camera. The capability of the camera to magnify the image using zoom is depicted as a number and x (2x, 3x, 4x, 8x etc) on the camera. Digital cameras resort to two types of zoom - the digital zoom, wherein a chip is used to magnify the image, and optical zoom, wherein the image is magnified by the help of physical lenses. Cameras with optical zoom have a definite advantage over their counterparts with digital zoom. When choosing the camera, the simple rule of the thumb you need to remember is that more the zoom - better the picture.
Resolution: Among the various misconceptions about the digital camera, the undue importance given to the megapixels is by far the greatest myth. Even though higher resolution (i.e. more megapixels) gives you an advantage in terms of cropping or printing pictures, it need not necessarily help you in taking good pictures. If you are an amateur photography enthusiasts, resolution of around 5-8 megapixels would be more than enough for your. You should go for higher resolution cameras only if you are planning to go for photography as a serious career option, wherein you would require to edit images and modify them.
Battery Life: The battery life is again one of the most underrated feature of a digital camera. Imagine you coming across a picture perfect scene, you aim to take the picture and a 'battery low' warning sign blinks on the screen. That is surely a photographers worst nightmare, to avoid this you need to take the battery life of the camera into consideration. A decent battery life is also important because low power can affect the quality of the photographs. Going through the digital camera comparison guide, you will realize that some moderately priced models have a better battery life than their high-end counterparts.
Other Features: Then there are quite a few features which can help you in adding that X factor to you basic photography skills. For instance, the easy to use exposure settings, which include the shutter speed and lens opening, can make photography all the emore easy. Similarly, opting for a camera with an auto focus will save you the pain of focusing on the subject. The list of other features you need to take into consideration when buying a digital camera include image stabilization, red eye reduction, blur reduction etc. all of which can make photography a memorable affair.
While these are the features which you need to consider, it doesn't necessarily mean you should stick to them; you always have the option of going for more than you actually want. That, however, will result in you spending more on the camera, without really getting to use those 'extra' features. As an amateur photographer, you can always buy a digital camera with a whopping resolution of 21 megapixels by spending a few extra dollars, but what's the use of that when you know that you can take the same pictures with a camera of 8 megapixels.
