Apathetic Thursday

or “What to look for in a digital camera.”

A few months back I had the opportunity to help a friend go camera shopping. She was looking for a simple point and shoot digital camera, hoping to use it for up close pictures of flowers, flora, and general greenery. It had been quite some time since I had been in the market for a camea myself, so I thought it would be fun to see how things have changed and get an idea of what is actually out there.

After a fairly thorough investigation of options, I have come to this as my conclusion: all the cameras are the same. No one camera has any features which separate it from another. To make matters worse, the camera companies seem to not only in competition with their camera making rivals, but also be in competition with themselves. Companies like Kodak and Canon have dozens of cameras with the only difference being so subtle, it’s hard to tell the difference between them.

When looking for a camera, there are really only 6 things that you need to look for.

Price.

The first criteria I would set when looking for a camera is the price. I would set the price range I would be willing to spend before I even went to the store. The price will be an important factor in choosing which camera to buy. There is really no limit to how much you could spend on a camera. (Professional cameras can cost many thousands of dollars.) By setting a price limit you will greatly narrow the choices you have, which will make selecting the perfect camera much easier. I would suggest a good range for today’s cameras to be $180-$250. You can find some for less, but usually anything cheaper is going to be a bit older and bit less up to par with the newer cameras. Once you set a limit, try to stick with it. This will really help you make a selection when the time comes.

Screen Size.

Let’s face it, in today’s world you can put your photos on the computer, on your TV, on the internet and print them off. But for a lot of people, the pictures stay on the camera. Even if you are in the habit of faithfully emptying your camera, you will many a time find yourself showing off photos or reviewing photos on the camera screen.

Many camera companies know this and as a result the screens are getting larger. 2.5 inches is a pretty nice size for a camera screen. Personally anything under about 2.4 inches is too small, but new screens are getting to be 2.9 inches or larger. As far as screen size goes, bigger is better.

Zoom Factor.

The next thing I would look at is the zoom factor. For some reason, camera companies feel the necessity to hype their camera’s digital zoom feature. In reality, digital zoom is absolutely meaningless. Digital zoom is nothing more then cropping the picture and artificially magnifying it so it’s the same size as the original. This usually decreases the quality of the image. All of this can be done after the picture has been taken.

What you do want to look for is the optical zoom. Most cameras have a 3-4x optical zoom which is probably good for most people. However, the more zoom you have, the more options you get when framing up a shot. One thing to think about with zoom is also the focal length. In the case of my friend, she wanted to take close up pictures of flowers. The initial reaction is to find a camera with a big zoom. This makes good sense, the bigger the zoom the closer you can get, right? Well, in reality, this isn’t always true. Sometimes a camera with a smaller zoom will let you get closer to the object and take a better picture. For example, I have a lens for my Digital SLR camera which goes from 75-300mm. This is a fancy way of saying it has a lot of zoom. If I am zoomed in as far as I can I have to stand about 4 or 5 feet away from the object I am trying to photograph. If I am trying to take a picture of a smaller object, such as a small flower, it is more beneficial for me to use my other lens, which doesn’t really have any zoom, but allows me to get right up close to the flower. This is referred to below as “macro factor.”

This is something you can experiment with in the store. I would highly suggest doing so if you have any intention of taking pictures of flowers or plants.

Battery Type.

Cameras come in three flavors of batteries. Lithium ion, AA (Double A), or a cocktail of the two.

Lithium ion batteries usually take the form of a small brick. THe upside to these batteries is that they have a long life span, are fairly compact and are rechargeable. The downside is that if you run out of juice, you are out of juice. You either need a spare, or to recharge your battery. These batteries are usually made specifically for a certain camera and can be a bit expensive if you want to buy a spare, but I have found that you can usually fill the memory card before the battery goes dead.

AA (Double A) batteries are nice because they are relatively cheap and you can buy them anywhere. The downside is that they don’t hold a charge as long and you’ll find yourself going through a log of batteries. There are also larger then most lithium packs.

A few cameras have a AA (Double A) slot and a lithium/rechargeable pack which is the size and shape of two Double A batteries. This allows you the convenience of using AA batteries if you charge from the pack runs out. Not very many cameras have this feature, because two Double A batteries take up more space then a small lithium pack.

Any camera that uses AA (Double A) batteries can use rechargeable Double A batteries, and I would highly recommend it, but it does require you to bring a Double A battery charger along for the ride.

Form Factor.

It is important to consider the form factor of the camera you are looking at. If you plan to take the camera everywhere you go, it would be good to have one that is slim enough to fit in your pocket. The first digital camera I bought was a Kodak EasyShare DX7590. I loved the camera, but it had the form factor of a small SLR camera. It was impractical to take it with me everywhere I went because it was too large. When I did take it with me on trips I felt like I was lugging a large object with me. I loved the camera, but it was a pain that it was so big.

Be sure also, that the camera feels good in your hand and that it’s controls are fairly intuitive. You are going to be taking a lot of pictures, make sure that you’ll enjoy it.

Memory Card Type.

Most cameras use an SD memory card. SD stands for Secure Digital. SD cards have become the industry standard. New TVs, laptops and the Nintendo Wii all have SD card readers built in. For picture sharing and viewing, SD is going to be your best bet for compatibility. SD cards are also fairly inexpensive.

Some sony cameras and some other brands use different memory cards/memory sticks. I don’t have much experience in this area, but they will be less compatable, harder to find and probably more expensive.

Megapixels.

The one thing you DON’T have to worry about when camera shopping, is the megapixels. This will, unfortunately, be the first thing that the camera companies and sale clerks throw at you, and it is one of the most misrepresented aspects of photography. Megapixels are used to describe the size of the image. A 6 MP photo will be larger then a 2 MP photo. This means the picture will be bigger in dimensions (length and width) as well as the file size.

Do not be fooled! Megapixels have nothing to do with picture quality! 6 MP will not look better than 4 MP, it will look bigger. Today, when everyone is putting pictures online, or printing off little 5 x 7 prints, 3-5 MP is sufficient. In fact, I have an amazing photo of a morning glory taken witha 1.8 MP olympus camera from several years back. The picture quality is good, it’s size is small.

That being said, if you want to make posters and you insist in printing off your photos on 16 x 24 inch prints, the bigger the Megapixels, the bigger your photos can be printed, and the less pixelated they will look.

Most cameras are in the 7-8 MP range today. This is more then the average consumer will need, and if you want, you can even turn down the number of megapixels that your camera is shooting at. Big megapixels won’t hurt, but I wouldn’t make it the sole factor of a purchase. (I should note, that some cameras do allow you to change the quality of an image, without changing the size of the image. This will change the compression of the jpeg that is being saved by the camera. The quality will be described as “Good” “Better” and “Best” whereas the MPs will be described by a numerical value.)

Understanding these criteria will allow you to see how many of the cameras meld together into a conglomerate of mediocre options. One camera will have a better zoom, but a higher minimum focal range. One will have a great minimum focal range, but a small LCD. Another will have all the options you want, but the wrong type of battery.

The combinations are endless, and it’s a constant game of give and take. I would love to go into an analysis of a half dozen cameras, but I have better things to occupy my time with. You can see an amazing example of this yourself by checking out a side by side comparison of a few cameras at dpreview.com.

In the end, my general conclusion is this: You can go out and buy almost any digital camera and be completely satisfied with it, but there will always be on little aspect of it that you wish was different. It’s a hard decision when it comes to buying a camera. I hope that some of these tips might be helpful to anyone who is in the market for a new camera.