How to Choose the Best Digital Camera

Digital cameras have gotten a lot more high tech than just point and shoot. Today's digital cameras can come with dozens of features so you can customize your camera to meet your photo taking needs. Here are a few of the different features that are available on today's digital cameras, so you know what to look for when you're out shopping.

Megapixel

The megapixel of your camera is going to be the resolution of your photos. Digital photos are made up of tiny dots called pixels; a megapixel stands for 1000 pixels. The more pixels you have, the higher the resolution of your photos. If you plan on cropping your pictures, or printing larger print you want to make sure you are purchasing a digital camera with a resolution that can accommodate those needs.

Optical v. Digital Zoom

Digital cameras in most cases have two different types of zooms, optical, and digital. Optical zoom is the zoom like your traditional camera would do, the lens goes in and out bring you closer, or further away from the picture. Digital zoom essentially takes the picture as it is…and blows it up. Since the digital zoon is merely enlarging the individual pixels in your picture, you can loose image quality when you use a digital zoom, and your pictures can seem blurry and out of focus. Most professional photographers will turn the digital zoom function off on their cameras to preserve the images quality. If you decide you want to enlarge the picture or zoom in a on a particular piece, you can do that later in a photo program with much better results.

Manual Focus

Professional photographers, and even some amateurs can enjoy having a manual focus on their camera. A manual focus will allow you to physically change how your camera is focusing and make different items stand out. A manual focus can make for much more creative pictures, and most digital cameras with the manual focus option also have an auto focus option for those times when your feeling less adventurous.

Movie Mode

Many digital cameras today will have a movie mode along with them as well. A movie mode allows the user to shoot a small mpg movie on their digital camera and save it to the cameras memory card. On some cameras the movie can have sound and take up as much room as is remaining on the cameras memory card. In other cases the camera can only make small clips without sound. If your interested in a movie mode make sure you know exactly what type of movie mode the camera your interested in has before you buy. Movie modes can be fun for family trips, allowing you to email a small clip of your vacation or special event to family members and friends.

Aperture priority and Shutter speed

More advanced photographers will want to be able to set their own aperture and shutter speed on the camera just like they would with their traditional SLR camera. There are digital cameras that will allow you to do this, and everything else you could do with a traditional SLR making your pictures just as creative as you are.

Portability

Cameras come in all shapes and sizes. Sure that big camera may have tons of great features, but are you going to want to carry that around with you on your family vacation? Make sure your picking a camera not only with the feature you want, but also one your going to willing to tote around.

Before making any camera purchase, think about what features are going to be important to you and look for the camera that meets most of your search criteria. Nothing could be worse than finding the perfect camera, the week after you make your camera purchase!