Low Cost Living - Digtal Cameras

Digital Photography

To get the best value in money terms from a digital camrea is to weigh up the specifications of models, always read reviews of them on the internet and go from there.

If you simply storing pictures on your PC and occasionally having one or two printed, a high resolution (as in 1.3 megapixels - 6 megapixels) isn't as necessary.
You also have to consider that if you're taking mountains of shots to store on PC, a high resolution camera will produce far bigger pictures and soon take a lot of space on your hard drive.

A rough guide for the size of printed photographs, as to resolution is as follows;

The right camera, right card and right program

0.3 Megapixel (640 x 480) = 4 x 3" print
1.2 Megapixel (1280 x 960) = 7 x 5" print
2 Megapixel (1600 x 1200) = 10 x 8" print
3.2 Megapixel (2048 x 1536) = 13.5 x 10" print
4 Megapixel (2288 x 1712) = 15 x 11" print
5 Megapixel (2500 x 2000) = 17 x 13" print

In 'the good old days' of film cameras, most of our holiday snaps would beof the 7" x 5" size

There is no shadow of doubt that a higher resolution will give you better quality, but the quality for most people would not be recognised maybe

But with mobile phone technology nowadays, 2megapixel is quite common on the newer sets. I think it would be quite hard to find a 1.2 megapixel in the shops nowadays, the most popular at present being 5.

After this, there are a few more things to be taken into consideration. Maybe if you're taking a lot of photographs of your favourite football team, a strong zoom and faster exposure camera is necessary.

But for all round use, a 5.0, with a 4/5 zoom and automatic settings for 'action', 'still', 'dark' and 'light' are sufficient.
Most of the 'average' digital cameras have these as said anyway, plus features like 'close ups' where you can get a picture from just a few inches, especially good for the likes of myself who takes a lot of shots for website work etc.

Focusing for everyday use is not a problem. Some cameras have a facility where, if you press the shoot button half way down, they will focus on that object only and take the picture.
Other little extras are cameras with a movie mode enabling you to take short movies which can be transferred to your PC or sent by email etc. to a friend.

Last is the memory card. Go for a camera which has the highest MB capacity you can get. Some new cameras only give a card which will hold about 12 photographs.

If need be, buy another one which will hold more. A good tip here is for Brits to buy on the Internet from America. They are much cheaper and only take 4/5 days to arrive.

Lastly you'll need a good photo editing programme, on which you can fiddle around with your pictures on the PC. Things like 'sharpen', colour / brightness / contrast adjustments and crop etc.
If the camera doesn't come with a package, before you buy a programme, try out the free trials off the internet to find which one you like best.
There are even freeware (completely free) editing programmes which can be obtained quite easily.

Check it's right for what you want it for, read reviews and comments from others, try out trial software before buying

Buy extras from the USA, they're usually a lot cheaper