Digi Buy Guide

To understand about a digital camera, you need to first understand the different parts that make-up the digital camera. We need to concentrate on a few of the parts.

Lens
Lens is the most important part of a digital camera. The light passes through the lens to the camera. So, lens should be of very good quality. Normally all the major brands use very good lenses. They don’t compromise on that. Lens also gives you optical zoom. Here is where the manufacturers compromise to decrease the price of the camera. The more the optical zoom the better for you. Also, some cameras have lens that can detect camera shake and adjust to give you blur free shots.

Sensor Chip
The sensor chip is the one which captures the light coming from the lens and creates a digital image to be copied to the memory. The bigger the sensor, the better the quality of the picture. Digital SLR cameras contain the biggest sensors. Also, bigger the megapixel number and smaller the sensor, the worse the quality of the picture. So, when you go for small (pocketable cameras), avoid higher megapixels. There will be noise in the images taken. That is why every one says don’t go by the megapixels.

Megapixels
An image is made up of small squares. These sqaures are pixels. The more these squares per square inch the better the resemblance of the picture to the reality. But, the more the pixels per square inch on a small sensor, the more the noise introduction. After all for a simple 4×6 print, just 3 megapixels(MP) are enough. Max you will require is 5 MP. The best way to figure out is not to look at sizes of sensor and MP but to look at the photo quality. Take a picture and see if you find any noise. Technology used might be good and might produce good picture.

Digital Zoom
Digital zoom is where the optics are not used for zooming but the pixels get extrapolated to give you a closeup. Most of the time the digital zoom is not required as you can enlarge and crop any image with simple software on any computer. But, it does come in handy when you want to take a very far away shot and want to take it at an exact moment. You can use digital zoom to zoom in and click the snap when the moment has arrived. Don’t give too much value to digital zoom.

External Memory
There are different external memory formats like Secure Digital, Compact Flash, Memory Stick, xD. Each camera manufacturer uses different memory card. Most of them use either SD (Secure Digital) or CF (Compact Flash). Since these are the most common formats, when you change camera you can still continue using your old memory cards. Whereas Memory Stick and xD are used mainly by Sony and Olympus respectively. Here you will have to stick with the same manufacturer to re-use your old memory cards. Again, this is not that important. Memory cards technology changes radically. Also, cameras outgrow the old memory card formats. It is a minor thing but might help you in making a decision between two cameras using proprietary and non-proprietary formats.

Battery
Every camera runs on a battery. There are two types of batteries used Li-ion (Lithium Ion) Battery and NiMH (Nickel-metal hydride) battery. The difference is that NiMH batteries are like standard AA batteries. So, if you run out of power, you don’t need to worry, you can just go to any store and buy AA batteries and continue shooting. The disadvantage is that the camera becomes slightly bulky. If Li-ion batteries run out of power, you have to wait for it to charge or carry a spare battery. Advantage is that the cameras can be compact and light weight.

Flash
The distance a flash can light varies from camera to camera. Don’t need to try to read and understand the manual to understand the flash. Just aim the camera at a dark spot that is about 10 feet away and take a snap. Check out if the dark spot got lighted enough or not. Ten feet is the normal distance between the subject and the camera person. For longer distances most of the flashes that come with consumer cameras are useless.

Once you understand the above different parts of a digital camera and what to look for and how, your digital camera buying process will become easy. Hope this helps in you with your shopping of a digital camera.