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Choosing a Camera

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User Unknown@losttoy

May 31, 2004 12:24 AM, 5835 Views

(Updated May 31, 2004)

Choosing a digital camera

The digital revolution has swept every one and everything. And thats very true for the camera industry. Every manufafcturer worth its lens glass has gotten into the digicam market. The downside is that in the mad rush to capture the digicam market, the manufacturers throw all sorts of jargon at the users. Here are few tips to help you decide.

Don’t get sucked into the megapixel rush. On the computer screen, 2MP looks as good as 4MP and if you are not going to print more than postcard size pics, 2MP is mostly enough for you.

Don’t go for those sleek-small ones. Even after all the automation, photography follows simple laws of physics. The more light you gather, the better and clearer is the picture quality. That means a bigger lens will always give you better results than that tiny lens in the mega-$$$ sleek-small camera.

Zoom Zoom!! Digital zoom is meaningless since its done via software manipulation thus resulting in resolution loss. Besides, you can digitally zoom a photo after downloading it to your PC. So look for the optical zoom capability. Also, several manufacturers offer upto 12x optical zoom. Beware, anything more than 3x optical zoom is useless unless you have a tripod or a stabilised lens. Too technical? Let me explain.

At high zoom (>3x), even the slightest shake of the camera blurs the photograph. If you take a stick and lightly shake it one end, you’ll notice that the other end moves more than the end you are holding. Now, I guess, you understand why long zoom needs stabilisation.

Some manufacturers like Panasonic and Minolta offer stabilised lens that correct this camera shake. Otherwise, carry a tripod around.

Check what kind of memory storage card does the camera take? Compact Flash is cheap where as propreitary formats like Sony’s memory stick is expensive. Manufacturers rarely supply enough memory with the camera so you’ll need to buy extra memory with the camera.

What kind is the battery? Again, see if the battery is propreitary. The problem with proprietary batteries is that they cost more and if the manufacturer stops making them, you’ll have to ditch the camera.

Low-light Autofocus - Check if the camera has low-light AF illuminator. What does it mean? Well, in normal light the camera uses the light around to focus the subject. In low-light its unable to do that for the lack of light. So some cameras are equipped with AF-assisst lamp that sends out infra-red beams to help the camera focus. Again, check if the AF-assisst lamp is flash mounted or not. A flash mounted AF-assisst lamp will come into action only when you use the flash whereas you might want to take pictures in low-light without flash using the ambient light. So look for a camera that does not have the AF-assisst lamp on the flash. Nikon puts them off the flash.

Note Cameras without AF-assisst are almost useless in low-light.

If you are an enthusiast or hobbyist, then check if the camera allows you to manually adjust focus, white balance, aperture, shutter speed, ISO rating. Also, if there are adapters available to attach more lenses to the camera.

See if the viewfinder is electronic or glass. Electronic view finders are essentially small LCDs that are useless in low-light. However, more consumer class camera are equipped with EVFs.

Last but not the least, test test and test. A good store should let you test the camera in the store. I carried a laptop to the store and took pictures with various cameras and compared them in the store before making a decision.