Buying a Digital Camera

I wanted to buy a digicam so decided to do some research and came up with this excellent technique to search for a digicam. Lets go thru this step by step.

1. What is your budget ?

Digital cameras range anywhere from $100 to $10000 and its very important

to start with budget. If you don’t have budget in mind you’ll end up

spending a couple of 100 $$s more for features that you’d never use.

1. What will be your TCO (Total Cost of Ownership) ?

Its really important to understand when buying digital camera.

a. The cost of the digital camera

b. The cost of memory card / storage media

c. The cost of batteries and charger

e.g.1

If you buy a Nikon coolpix 885(3.2M) the cost of camera is roughly $350

then addon the cost of a 128 MB compact flash (CF) card which is around

$70 and since it comes with inbuilt charger and battery the

TCO is 350+70 which is $420

If you buy an equivalent digital camera from say Olympus the

TCO can be different. See below

e.g.2

Lets say Olympus offers a 3.2M camera the C350Z

Cost of camera : $350

Cost of 128MB SmartMedia/xd-PictureCard : $125

Cost of 4 NiMH batteries with charger : $30

TCO : 350 + 125 + 30 which adds upto $505

So I can have the same type of camera but based on my choice of brand I can pay $100 more.

1. What features are most important to you ?

I strongly recommend you to familiarise yourself with the digital glossary

since it will help you get the most out of your digital camera.

You can go thru an excellent user friendly and easy to understand glossary (even

for novices) on this site.

https://dpreview.net

1. Basic features I believe are most important (Please this is my opinion you

are allowed to think differently coz you’r not me)

Manual Focus

Auto focus goes crazy at times and you will not be able to take

a photo at the critical last moment if your camera doesn’t allow

to focus manually

Optical Zoom

As compared to digital zoom optical zoom zooms in on the object

and allows for getting more details and you’ll need atleast a 2X or

3X zoom

3.2 MegaPixel (3.2M)

This will allow your to print upto 8 X 10 photo (5R) (roughly the

size of a normal A4/foolscape paper) without any

distortion and I think I don’t want to print any bigger than that

so 4M or 5M are not worth the extra money for me)

Atleast 128 MB memory card (CF ideal see below)

I would prefer a 256MB since it gives me real freedom on my travel trips

and I don’t need to bother uploading even once on a week long trip even

if I take a lot of pics.

Compact Flash Memory Card Support

Compact flash cards are generally much cheaper than other cards because there

are several vendors manufacturing them (so high competition in prices) as

compared to other cards.

Just briefly other cards and cameras that you can expect to support them are

listed below

SmartMedia

Supported by Olympus / Fujifilm cameras only

Beware !!!. This is a dying card and the

max capacity you can get is only 128MB

Also since only Oly & Fuji manufacture it

the cost is also high (roughly around $100 for

128MB card)

Expensive option look for cameras that support

xD-PictureCard if you need higher capacity.

xD-PictureCard

This is a the replacement version of SmartMedia

and supports higher capacity 256 MB 512 MB etc)

Again this is only used in Olympus / Fujifilm

and they are the only ones who manufacture it so

prices are higher

SecureDigital

/ Multi-Media

Card

(SD/MMC)

Used in various cameras. Several manufacturers

make it so prices are slightly lower compared

with SmartMedia or xD-PictureCard

No storage limitations

MemoryStick

Only used and manufactured by Sony.

The most expensive cards around. Roughly $150

for 128MB card.

No limitations on storage but definitely

expensive

Compact Flash

Type I

This is the normal compact flash card which will

be supported by many top-brand cameras

such as Canon/ Nikon/ Minolta

The cheapest cards available around and highly

competitive market so you can get the best

prices from different vendors.

The only catch can be that vendors who offer cheaper

cards will have cards that are slow to read/write

(but you’ll hardly notice the difference unless you

are using the video capture mode for which you rather

use a digital videocam)

Even if you buy from a good vendor such as Sandisk /

IOMega these will still be cheaper. You can

roughly buy a 256 MB CF card for the price of

a 128 MB momory stick

Compact Flash

Type II

or

MicroDrive

Newer Canon and other cameras support MicroDrive (which

is same as CF II.

The only thing is that a Microdrive is much faster and supports

340 MB 512 MB 1 GB 2 GB) capacities so in case you are in

for some serious amateur photography lookout for Microdrive

support.

Also quite competitively priced.

1. OK now I know what I want how to find cameras which support

this features ?

Its easy Just goto

https://dpreview.net

Then click on ’Buying Guide Features Search’ on the left side of the

home page.

You’ll get a search form. Select the above mentioned

features and you will get a list of cameras that support all of the

above.

Remember the above list is very generic and you should add more search

features to narrow your search to a few cameras 3-4 is ideal.

1. Now I have shortlisted 4 cameras which meet my needs & budget how

to pick the best ?

Next on the same site goto ’Reviews Your Camera Brand’ and read

a review on your chosen cameras.

The best part of the review is in ’Conclusion’. Select the ’Conclusion’

page from the drop down list on the top right hand side of the

review page for that camera.

Read the pros & cons of your cameras. Next checkout the ratings like

Image quality/value for money. and see the tip

whether its ’Highly Recommended’ or ’Recommended’ etc.

Note it doesn’t matter that a camera you like is just mention above

average. If you find that the camera suits your needs and budget you

can still buy it. The only reason you look at recommendation is to

chose the best one out of several cameras.

Offcourse you are encourage to go thru some 30 odd pages of review

and tests the author has done to see if your camera really measures

up but only if you have lot of time.

Incase you can’t find a review there will always be one for a similar

model. If not then you need to goto next step without reading the review.

1. What if I still need more details ?

Just goto the forums section for your selected brand and model

and see what are the experiences of other users of those camera.

If several people found it useful you can trust them or ask them

more questions before actually buying.