Help with shopping for digital camera please?

[DaRuSsIaMaN]

I have never personally owned a camera in my entire life lol. I guess my approach has always been just to remember places I've been and things I've seen rather than going around snapping pictures of everything.

But now I want to buy one. Problem is, I don't really understand what to look for. I know I want a digital one, and I know it has to be portable (the kind most people carry around these days), not one of those professional types with big lenses sticking out. But beyond that, I don't know how to evaluate the specs at all, except that more megapixels means better, generally.

So, any advice? Any specific recommendations? I guess my budget is around $150-200ish but I guess I could go up to 250 if there's a good reason for it.

Thanks.

 

[donkey42]

i've had cameras but not digital ones

the main thing is: (i think) the difference between optical zoom & digital zoom, optical zoom is the actual quality of the image or vid & digital zoom is how much the camera can zoom into an existing image or vid, although, i'm not an expert in digital cameras or photography in any way

 

[thomas234]

Things to look for when buying a digital camera are:

Zoom - Optical zoom is how far the lens actually zooms in, whereas digital is where the image is cropped and stretched. If a camera says 57x zoom, it's more likely 5.7x optical zoom and 10x digital zoom.

Megapixels - Don't be fooled by the number of megapixels a camera has, unless you want to print big pictures (larger than 12x8") then you won't need anything above 8mp. My £300 SLR (Nikon D40) is 6mp.

ISO - Cameras sometimes advertise high ISO numbers. This is how sensitive the sensor is, and how much detail is captured. At night when there isn't much light, the camera sets a high ISO, although the pictures are very grainy. A camera with ISO 100-1600 is very good.

Lens - I like cameras which have a wide angle lens (28mm on an old film camera). You get more in the picture without having to walk backwards.

Brand - Lumix (Panasonic) are slightly more expensive, but you get what you pay for. With Canon you pay more for their advertising, so I wouldn't recommend them.

Face Recognition - New software in cameras has the ability to pick up peoples faces, and focus accordingly, so you rarely get out of focus shots.

Memory card - An ideal camera would take SDHC (SD Cards 4gb and above).

Personally I don't like small compact cameras because they're easy to drop, quite often don't have a viewfinder, and don't give as good pictures as a DSLR (the big black ones with sticky-outy lenses).