The camera market has shifted drastically toward digital cameras, so the majority of consumer cameras today are digital. Most advertising relies on megapixel count, but there is much more to choosing a camera. It's important to consider how you will be using the camera to determine which features are most important, or even necessary, for your next purchase.
Instructions
What to look for in your new camera
1. The first thing you will want to do is to think about how you will be using the camera. If you are considering making a career of photography or are a serious hobbyist you will want to consider a DSLR (digital single-lens reflex camera). However, if you are just looking for something to record snapshots, a point-and-shoot camera will do just fine.
2. Megapixels are the most advertised feature of a camera--and for good reason. The more megapixels you have, the larger prints you can make and the more editing and cropping you can do without hurting the quality of the image. You only need at most 4 megapixels to make a quality 4-by-6-inch print, but that means you can't do much editing or cropping. If you want to make larger prints or crop your photos, you'll need more. Megapixels aren't the end all, but extras never hurt. If you have 8 megapixels, you can print average quality prints up to 20-by-30 inches and top quality prints up to 11-by-14. As a pro shooter, the more megapixels you have the more freedom you have to edit and crop your photos.
3. Determine what type of lens you are going to want. On DLSRs, you will purchase the lenses separately from the body. For point-and-shoot cameras, you want to consider the lens that is built in to the camera. Some have lenses that are built into the body and are covered by a slider. These cameras are very compact and portable, but often sacrifice some image quality. A retractable lens is bigger but provides better image quality and usually a wider range of focal lengths. A fixed lens typically provides the best quality but can make the camera harder to fit in a pocket.
4. If you are considering taking pictures of moving subjects or in low light, be sure to check out the ISO settings. Higher ISO settings lessen the amount of light a camera needs to record an image. The default setting is 100, but some cameras can go up to 6400. Each time the ISO doubles, the shutter speed doubles. However, the higher the ISO, the noisier, or grainier, the picture will turn out. Better cameras minimize this negative side effect.
5. Especially for more technical photographers, examine which settings on the camera you can manually control. Some cameras claim to have manual mode, but only allow you to change a few settings. For people interested in taking more than snapshots, find out if you can change the shutter speed, aperture, ISO, focus, and white balance.
Tags: crop your, crop your photos, editing cropping, image quality, larger prints, megapixels have, more megapixels have