I faced all the miseries in the world together before buying a digital camera (Should I have said ‘Digital’? Who goes for the analog... Oops sorry the conventional film-negative-develop cameras? Btw, how do we call them? I forgot!). So many models and each boasting its own features, it is not easy to select a camera. Also when you know you will have to shell out thousands of rupees, there is a tendency to think doubly hard and in the process get confused. I had done my homework for about 2 months to select a model, got the advise of so many people, finalized a model and went to the shop to buy one; but bought a different model with an instinctive diplomacy, which saved me almost 10, 000 rupees!
Every person I had asked for a suggestion added more to my confusion; the confusions follow …
Confusion 1: The MEGA pixels
I got swayed away by the numbers 6.0, 7.1 and 8.3 and so on. Once I had decided my camera will not have anything less than 7 mega pixels, when one of my friends advised me to go only for high-end model. Agreed that higher the mega pixels, greater the clarity. But do we necessarily need such high reso cameras?
Last minute realization 1:
Not necessary unless you would want to print posters! My friend had a mobile phone with inbuilt 2.0 MP (stands for Mega pixel) camera. Even that had reasonable quality. I have used a 3 MP, featureless camera, even that served it purpose. So anything above 3, say 4 or 5 MP should do for normal use. With 5MP you can get high quality print on an A4 paper (the computer print out sheet). Do we need more?
Confusion 2: The ZOOOOOOOOOOOOOM
I knew there was concepts called Digital zoom and Optical zoom. Optical zoom is actual zoom where your lens gets the actual focus nearer to what you want to shoot. Digital zoom is just manipulation of the image obtained, i.e. like seeing an image and imagining it to be bigger. Obviously, optical zoom gives better images. One of my friends showed me a model of Nikon where we were on the third floor and we could see a small object on the street that was some 40 meters away. It had 24X optical zoom (that’s how they represent zoom in terms of X). I was stunned. I wanted at least a quarter of that capacity on my camera.
Last minute realization 2:
My conscious told me, ‘hey unless you would want to peep into the neighbors house you don’t need that much zoom’. It didn’t stop, ‘Still if you want to peep, buy a binocular, not a camera’. I immediately decided I will settle for 3X optical zoom. (But at least a 3X zoom is must)
Confusion 3: The chemical composition called BATTERY
I had a misconception that only cameras with Lithium ion battery (like the ones we find in mobiles) are good cameras. My mind would never accept a camera with ordinary pen cell batteries. I don’t know why I had an affinity for this type of models. This confusion I added to myself.
Last minute realization 3:
If I have a camera that would have only Lithium Ion (or that type) of batteries, charging them might be difficult. I cannot afford to have a spare battery as well. When I am interestingly taking pictures, if the battery goes down, I can only shut the camera down and get on with rest. But If it was just an AA (pen cell regular batteries like Eveready and Duracell), I can throw it away and buy a new pair for just 40 rupees.
Confusion 4: The maya called LOOKS
The model I had chosen, before buying, was just so sleek. I was in love with it for a very long time. But sleeker the model becomes, greater is the cost.
Last minute realization 4:
The cost-benefit analysis that was running all the time on my mind told me that I am paying a huge amount extra just for looks. I decided to compromise that too.
Apart from these, I was very particular about few things:
Video recording feature
In built memory and a memory slot where I can add more memory
Brand name
Auto features like, Auto flash and auto focus
A reasonably big LCD screen where I can happily see the image, instead of having to transfer
to the PC to enjoy the full effect
With all my confusions coming to an end, I ended up buying a camera at the cost of 11, 000 rupees. Before my realizations, I would have spent 21000 – 22000 rupees, for not-so-much difference in cameras’ abilities. Hope you too are now aware what to compromise and what not to compromise.
Coming soon at Mouthshut …
A review on Sony cybershot DSC W5 by envyram
-Vinayak
Please do leave your comments on my judgement!
(Updated: 10th July 2006
https://mouthshut.com/review/Sony_Cyber-Shot_DSC-W5-104827-1.html)