Photography tips

I just thought I would go thru a few of the things to look at when buying a Point and Shoot or Compact Digital Camera. There is so many things to consider, and the salesman will be looking for his biggest commision, so knowing what you want can get you a camera that suits you, and what you want to do with it.

If you have read all of my posts you would know that over the years I have bought my fair share of Compact Cameras, so I'll try and pass some of my experience on to you, so you get a better deal.

The things we will look at covering are:

• Batteries
• Zoom
• Storage and Memory Cards
• Megapixels and image size
• Features

Batteries

First thing you want to know is about the batteries. They are an essential item for a digital Camera - they just don't work without power. The batteries come in 3 types - inbuilt into the Camera, Proprietary and "AA" batteries.

The builtin battery is the least preferred, as you will need to plug in your camera to recharge it. This means when the battery is flat you cannot use your camera.

A Proprietary battery has good and bad points - Generally it is shaped to fit into a small camera. The bad point is they are usually quite expensive to get a 2nd one so you can shoot longer.

The "AA" Batteries are a good choice. You can buy rechargable batteries for a cheap price, meaning you can buy 2 or 3 sets and take  photos all day long. In a pinch, you can buy disposable Alkaline batteries if your rechargables go flat. The downside is that the camera will need to be a little bigger to use these batteries.

Zoom

The zoom on Compact Cameras is generally shown in terms of a multiplier. Typical zooms are 3x, 4x, 6x, 10x and 12x. Think of the zoom in terms of how far away you are to get the same fram in a picture. For example at 1x (no zoom) you might be say 2 metres away to get the picture, but at 3x zoom, you could get the same picture from approx 6 Metres away.

From my own experience, a 4x optical zoom should be fine. For a longer zoom, you will need a Camera that is fairly large and not so compact!

Storage and Memory

Some Cameras have built in memory, and nearly all have a slot for a memory Card. Don't buy a camera that does not have a memory card slot! If you do, you are very limited in the number of photos you can take before downloading them to your Computer.

Now, there are several types of Cards, from SD, MMC, Mini SD, Memory Stick, XD and CF just to name a few! The most popular for Compact Cameras are SD (Secure Digital). This makes them the cheapest as well.

Now, you can buy cards in a lot of sizes, from as small as  8meg right up to 4Gig or more. Of course, the bigger the card the more photos you can take before you need to download them.  When you go to buy your camera, find out what sort of card it takes, and what size card comes with your Camera.

The salesman will probably tell you how many photos will fit on each card. They will probably tell you a huge number. The number is probably correct if you use one of the smaller image sizes - you want to know how many photos of the largest size and best quality can fit on a card.

Megapixels

The Megapixels is a count of all the individual pixels (dots) that make up a digital photo. Here again, the salesman will try and sell you the Camera with the biggest number! If you read my previous posts, you would know a bit about the required megapixels. It is probably reasonable to say that you would want 4Megapixels as a starting point. With 4 Megapixels, you can do prints up to 6x8 incehs. The more megapixels the bigger the cost, and the bigger the files that you will need to store on your Memory Card. Big memory cards cost more as well, so think about how big you really need.

Features

A lot of Compact Cameras will have certain features which will affect your decision. Do you need an inbuilt Flash? do you want an optical viewfinder? Do you wan the Camera to do everything for you or do you want manual control?  This is where you need to do a bit of research!

The latest cameras will probably have more zoom, more megapixels, more "features" and of course a bigger pricetag! By buying smart, and not buying the latest model you can get a great deal!

Buying A Camera

Never buy a digital Camera from the first place you look! The best advice I can give is to decide on what you need, find out about the main features of all brands that offer what you want, go to a shop and try it out - see if you like how it operates, how easy or hard is it to use.

Now the best tip I can give you is to take your own media card with you. Take a couple of photos using the different Cameras and bring them home with you. Look at them on your computer and check out the quality of the pictures before you buy.

For your first Camera I would personally recommend getting one that has 3x or 4x optical zoom, takes an SD Memory Card and uses "AA" Batteries. Get a 512Meg or larger card. Look for a Camera that has manual settings, even if you don't know how to use them, you can grow into it. You will have at least 1 choice from all the major manufacturers with this as your starting point.