Buying a Digital Camera

Just for fun, I just visited Best Buy’s Web site, and took a look at the digital cameras they have on sale. And for more fun, I sorted the list from lowest price to highest price. The least expensive camera they list is a Fugi FinePix 8.2MP Digital Camera, with a 3x optical zoom

and a 2.5″ LCD. The price? Just $81.99….   holy cow! Tell you what, I’m just floored the way cameras (and all other electronics, for that matter) are plummeting in price while still bursting with features. A year or two ago, this camera would have set you back at least 3x that much if not more.

Now, I’m not suggesting you run out and get this particular camera…   I mean it *is* pink. But the point is, it really is a perfect time to jump into digital cameras (if you haven’t yet), or perhaps even upgrade if your current digital camera is a few years old.

With that in mind, here are a few things to look for when making the camera decision:

• Point and Shoot or DSLR (digital single-lense reflex) – This one is pretty easy. If you were a photo-head in the past, and still have your old 35mm Nikon bodies sitting amongst a slew of interchangeable lenses (replace “Nikon” with your favorite camera company), you’ll probably want all those same film-camera features in your new digital camera. That means that DSLR is for you.On the other hand, if you just want to aim your camera in the general direction of your subject, push a button, and get a wonderful picture without knowing anything about aperture, shutter-speed, ISO, etc., then a Point and Shoot is for you.

• How many Megapixels? - In the digital world, your picture is made up of little tiny squares we call pixels. Just how many pixels make up your picture is referred to that cameras “Megapixels”… which means “millions of pixels”. For example, the Fuji camera we mention above is an 8.2 Megapixel (MP) camera. That means there are 8.2 million little square pixels in each picture you take. They come up with the MP number by multiplying the number of pixels wide x the number of pixels tall. With the Fugi, it’s 3264 x 2448 = 7,990,272. But wait, that’s NOT 8.2 million!!!!  Well, they fudge a bit with the numbers because of some other technical things…  but for our purposes it’s close enough.So who cares? Well, the number of MP’s mean two things to you... (1) The more pixels in your picture, the bigger the print you can make. As a rule of thumb, 200 to 300 pixels per inch (ppi) is what you want in a good looking printed image. Doing a bit of math with the above picture dimensions (3264 x 2448) and the 200ppi, you can determine that the largest BEST looking print you can make from this camera is (3264/200 = 16inches) x (2448/200 = 12inches)….  a 16 x 12 inch print.  Now keep in mind that beauty really is in the eye of the beholder, and in fact, a picture at 150ppi or even 100ppi might look just fine to you. So this camera might actually let you make pictures that are even bigger than 16×12. But let’s face it, do you typically print images that big? I bet not. Most of us are happy with the good old 4×6. Guess how many MP you need for THAT size? Only 0.96MP (less than 1MP)!!!  What does this tell you? Maybe you don’t really NEED all those MPs…   but read on….(2) The more pixels in your picture, the better you can zoom in on just parts of the image AND the more pixels you have to work with when editing images. If you are someone who does a lot of nature photography (i.e. takes pictures of little things far, far away and then likes to enlarge them to print) or just are someone who stands too far way from the subject when they take pictures, you will benefit from a camera with more MPs. The more pixels you have when you enlarge just small parts of an image, the better the final, cropped picture will look. You also get better results with more MPs if you do a lot of image editing (fixing up your pictures in software called an image editor).Look at these three pictures as an example. The first is our shot zooming as close as we could. The second is what the picture looks like after enlarging just the head area in our image editor. This is from a camera with lower Megapixels. The third is the same enlargement, but from a camera that has higher megapixels. Can you see the difference?
  

  

  
  

  What to do? At this point in time, the most common MP sizes for cameras is in the 6 to 12MP range, which is certainly overkill for #1 above (print size), but perfect for #2 (enlarging parts of an image, image editing). And as time goes on, inexpensive cameras will probably quickly move into the 10+ MP range. So the good news is, just about any modern digital camera is going to have enough MPs for you. But there is some bad news too…  keep in mind that more MPs also means bigger file sizes, and bigger file sizes translates to pictures that take longer to transfer from your camera to the computer, pictures that take up more space on your comptuer, and pictures that may not travel well as email attachments.

• Optical Zoom – Zooming is great, and frankly, most of us can’t get enough of it. This means you should look for a camera that has as much opitical zoom capability as you can. Notice I said “optical” and NOT “digital” zoom. Digital zoom is “fake zoom”, a.k.a. “bad zoom”. It’s simply where the camera internaly enlarges part of the camera sensor chip to make part of a picture bigger. This leads to bigger looking pixels, which leads to crummy looking pictures. So, ignore digital zoom and focus (focus, get it?) on optical zoom.Most digital cameras will have zoom listed as an “X” factor. Our Fugi FinePix camera has an optical zoom of 3x, which is pretty typical. if you are a photo-head and want to relate this to the lens mm (milimeter) focal equivalent, this camera has a zoom from about 35mm to 113mm. You can always see the “x” factor focal eqivalent if you look at the digital camera specifications.But for the rest of you non-photo-heads, your camera should have at least a 3x zoom. But if you can do better (5x, 7x, 10x), it’s worth it.

• LCD Screen Size – The little TV screen on the back of your camera is called an LCD (liquid crystal display), and it’s what you use to (1)sometimes compose the image before you take it, (2) view the image after you’ve take it, and (3) display your cameras internal, electronic, menu. The larger the LCD size, the easier it is to see these three things. This means bigger IS better. However, keep in mind that some cameras that have BIG LCDs do not have a regular viewfinder to compose your shot… which is something you might miss when you’re out taking pictures in bright sunlight.

• Exposure Features – I onetime heard a photographer say “I paint with light”, which is a very true statement but one that many budding photographers don’t think about. The most important thing about your picture (besides the subject) is HOW IT IS LIT. How the scene is lit is translated into your “picture exposure” on the camera. Your camera controls exposure (how dark or bright it is) using two features: (1) Aperture (size of the lens opening), and (2) Shutter Speed (how long light falls on the sensor chip). The camera balances these two features to get the properly exposed picture.Although your camera has wonderful AUTOMATIC EXPOSURE settings that usually give you a great picture, your camera can be fooled in certain situations. For example, if you’ve ever taken a picture of someone standing in the snow, you’ll notice that the snow looks pretty good, but the person comes out quite dark (underexposed). Same thing happens when you are by a lake or river. There’s so much light reflecting into your camera that it wrongly lowers the exposure, making the subject too dark.Ok, here’s the point… new digital cameras have lots of different ways to set exposure besides automatic, and for those who want to get the best pictures, purchasing a camera that includes these features is important. They include: Scene Settings (where you choose the type of scene and the camera automatically adjusts to it), Aperture and Shutter Priority (where you control either of these, and the camera sets the other, giving you control over depth of field with Aperture, or subject movement with Shutter Speed), ISO (where you set the “speed” of your sensor chip so that your camera becomes more useful for indoor pictures without the flash), EV (exposure value settings, where you can manually over or under expose an image).

Those are the most important considerations, but also keep in mind that the “feel” of the camera is also important, so you’ll want to visit your local store and actually pickup and try the camera out.  Also keep in mind that the Senior Health Foundation has LOTS of classes that have to do with digital imaging and cameras. if you are interested, please check out our regular web site (www.shf.org) or email me at jlortz@shf.org.

Tagged as: digital camera, digital imaging, Photography