Buying Your First Digital Camera

Know the Terminology

If you don't already know what the terms depth of field, diopter adjustment, megapixels, and F-stop mean, you should spend some time learning them and other important digital photography terms so you can make a well informed choice when you spend your money.

• Glossary of Digital Imaging & Photography
• Glossary: Learn: Digital Photography Review

Things to Consider

Consider what your primary use of the camera will be. It's a waste of money to buy an 8 megapixel camera if you're only going to print 4x6" snapshots or e-mail pictures of the children to grandma (not to imply that sending pictures to grandma is a waste of money!). Small "pocket size" cameras are very handy since you can always have them with you. But they typically lack some features that larger cameras often provide, such as more than about 2x optical zoom, or the ability to use standard AA NiMH batteries (although very few new cameras of any size now use AA batteries). Also, they may lack dedicated buttons for frequently used functions due to their small size. Be sure to allocate money for extra memory, batteries, and perhaps a charger in your budget. Visit your local camera or electronics store and handle your short list cameras before making your final decision. Is the camera comfortable in your hands? Can you easily reach and operate the controls? Is it easy to hold steady (very important for long zoom shots)? A few sites that discuss digital camera buying considerations are:

• A Guide to Choose Digital Camera and Camcorder
• A Short Course in Choosing a Digital Camera
• Digital Cameras: The Essential Buying Guide
• How to Choose a Digital Camera

Review Sites

Before buying a digital camera, read what experts have to say about it and look at some sample pictures. All of the review sites listed here do detailed camera reviews and will help you learn which cameras excel or do poorly in certain respects compared others in their class.

• Digital Camera Resource
• Digital Camera Reviews and News: Digital Photography Review
• Digital Cameras - Unbiased reviews & advice from Digital Camera HQ
• Imaging Resource
• Steve's Digcams

Camera Selection Wizard

After deciding on your budget and which features are most important to you, the wizard is very useful to quickly narrow down your search to a few cameras. Then the wizard can help refine the search by your answers to additional questions.