Photography Choosing a camera

Choosing a camera

Certainly, the most apparent concern that customers have is what kind of camera they should choose. Camera customers normally drop into one of three main categories: individuals with less experience, enthusiasts and experts, and understanding where you fit can help you recognize what functions might be important, and what type of camera would add up for your needs. Are you looking to just take a few images of family, take remembrances from holidays, or generate injections of characteristics and areas to develop a portfolio? Also think about how much excellent you are willing to business away for mobility, as camcorders can variety from large and heavy top drawer SLR camcorders (Single Lens Reflex) to small ultra-portable camcorders, some of which may not even have a display.

Camera categories

Cameras are typically broken down into groups: ultra-compact, compact, prosumer or hobbyist, and digital SLR, and most manufacturers build units in several categories to capture more of the market. On each end of the range, the ultra-compacts are designed to be the most portable, often fitting into pockets easily and used as key chains, while the digital SLR cameras are professional quality tools that have the widest range of options, such as external flashes, lenses and tripods (but are also often the largest and most cumbersome to carry). Most units fall into the middle two categories, with compacts having a good range of quality, resolution, and options, and the prosumer range including higher quality and greater control over manual options and accessories.

Megapixels

Buying by only the mega-pixel score will mean you will neglect out on the other features of the camera – mobility, components, a top excellent display, but it is one of the most important concerns. Less than 3 mega-pixel camcorders are suitable for primary snapshots; the camera will be small and excellent enough to take primary 'I was there' injections, but the pictures will not be as clear if you want anything bigger than standard 4x6 styles. Between 3 and 5 mp, you will look for a variety of daily use and vacation camcorders – you can complete your photo collections with injections from camcorders in this variety or use them as pc pictures, as you will usually look for the pictures are excellent enough that you don’t need any more and will be able to create top excellent styles at a variety of styles. From 5 to 10 mp, you will discover more serious camcorders for enthusiasts that want to discover images as an art or those that are looking to stand above the bend – the pictures will take up more disk drive space but will be perfect for adjustment and publishing out in bigger styles. A number of camcorders are available across different groups with 10 mp or more, although this kind of picture resolution is usually overkill for informal daily use. Choose a 10 mega-pixel or higher picture resolution camera if you are a professional and anticipate to be paid for the work you produce, if you need the highest picture resolution because you anticipate to create significant enhancements of your photographs for mounting/framing, if you want more versatile popping options, or if you simply want the ultimate in picture excellent.

Zoom

Zooming is another important consideration with digital cameras - there are two kinds of zoom: optical zoom and digital zoom. An optical zoom factor is one that relies on the lens itself magnifying the light coming in, so that what is distant appears larger and closer in the resulting image. A digital zoom factor is one that takes the resulting image and magnifies it after the fact. Needless to say, an optical zoom factor is much more important than a digital zoom factor (and produces better quality results).

Storage media

The way the images themselves are stored can be a factor in your decision, as some camera makers have proprietary storage systems that are incompatible with the cameras of other makes. Some common formats are Compact Flash (a fairly common format across both compact and professional cameras), Secure Digital (SD) cards (which are fairly common in compact cameras due to their smaller size), and Sony Memory Stick (unique to Sony cameras, but also supported by Sony computers, televisions, and other devices). Storage sizes can range from smaller 8MB cards/sticks, which can hold about a dozen three megapixel images, to larger 32GB cards/sticks and higher, which can hold thousands of images, and are especially useful when storing photos in a 'raw' format (a direct unprocessed copy of the image data from the camera sensor, available more commonly with digital SLR cameras, and takes much more storage space per photo). Prices have come down on most of the memory cards/sticks making selection of the larger sizes more affordable and a smarter choice. Choose the largest size you are comfortable with, and ideally select a second smaller stick as a backup in case the first one becomes full – for example, a combination of a 512MB with a 4GB card/stick is good if you move all your images onto your computer on a regular basis.