Key Camera Features

Key Features of a Digital Camera: Getting Past the Sticking Points when Buying your New Digital Camera!

It’s amazing what technology has given us. For the most part, gone are the days of loading and unloading film into your camera and having to wait days for the film to be developed.

Instant gratification is an understatement when you figure that a) you can view your picture on an LCD screen seconds after you’ve taken it b) delete it if you don’t like it c) quickly upload it to your computer (vs. taking it to the store to have it developed) and d) shooting it out in an email blast to all of your friends and family in the push of a button.

In a nutshell – in the time it used to take us just to get the pictures back (when sometimes half of the pictures were no good anyways); your grandmother across the country can have pictures of the great grandkids…with time to spare.

So it’s your turn now. You want a digital camera, but if you’re like many people out there all of the technical mumbo jumbo has got you a little hesitant – making you cautious of wasting your money on a camera that’s not so great.

It’s really not as complicated as it may seem from the get-go, especially if you’re simply buying a digital camera for the purposes stated above…taking quick everyday pictures…capturing the moment and emailing it over to your friends and family. It does get a bit more complicated if you’re planning on taking professional photos or thinking about taking up photography as a serious hobby. At that stage things do differ quite a bit, and some features are obviously more important than others.

The key to it all in the beginning is to know exactly what you plan to use your digital camera for, and then – and only then – can you go into your investment confidently.

So what are some of the things that you should be looking for?

Well, the most important things on a digital camera for general purposes, for the non professional, is obviously ease of use. Now the good part is that since the companies who make digital cameras understand this, most have done a fairly reasonable job in making sure that there average camera’s have this simple usability. It’s important to think about the menu features and how well you’ll be able to figure them all out. If you’re the type of person who just throws out the directions with the box and dives right in, then you’ll probably want to be sure that it’s pretty simple to use.

So Let’s Get Started with the Important Stuff…

You’ve no doubt heard of megapixels. You might even cringe from the word because you don’t even know what the heck it means and it seems so important. Simply put, megapixels are tiny dots…lots of tiny dots. It’s actually the measurement of one pixel (the tiniest unit of any digital image) multiplied by 1 million. So a megapixel is one million pixels.

Basically, the more megapixels that a camera has, the better the quality – or resolution –the picture will be. In the earlier days most cameras had 3 megapixels, but these days the standard is usually 5, and with that; everyday digital pictures should be perfectly fine and will produce a sharp 11-by-14 print.

The resolution then is the quality of the detail in the photo either on a computer screen, your camera’s LCD screen, or a printout of a photo. It’s measured in pixels per inch, or DPI which means Dots per Inch. Again, the higher the number, the better the quality of the photo, and the more the photo can be manipulated – meaning you can enlarge the photo without losing as much quality and causing it to be grainy in appearance.

The next thing that people get confused by with digital cameras is the zoom. This is because the manufacturers get a little tricky with this and pretty much combine the two types of zooming…the optical zoom and the digital zoom. Basically, the one you should be concerned about is the one that you’re already used to, the optical zoom. This is the type of zoom that you would find on a traditional 35mm camera, or binoculars let’s say. This is an actually zooming in on an object.

Digital zoom is pretty much after the fact zoom. It basically zooms in on a certain area of the photo that’s already been taken. In essence this is less important because you can do the same type of zooming in on your photo software if you take the time to learn it. So you need to be careful and really look into the type of zoom strength you’re getting, and figure out which is most important to you.

Being able to focus in on your subject is obviously important. Some cameras have auto focus built into them, which can be good, but it’s also nice to have the option to have manual focus as well. You’ll likely lose fewer shots with manual focus.

Storage is sometimes a sticking point, but for the most part don’t go crazy because most cameras’ starter memory cards hold very little space and therefore you’ll need to get a memory card anyways, unless you plan on uploading your shots every few pictures that you take. Not a hugely important number to get hung up on.

So there you have it. For the most part, buying a digital camera isn’t brain surgery although it seems like it in the beginning. Armed with your new knowledge you should be a lot more confident to shop around for your digital camera now.