Digital Camera Master

Do you need to get a new camera next year just because the megapixel bar has been raised—or some other cool new features have surfaced?

No, you don’t. Just like your desktop computer, a digital camera isn’t obsolete just because a new model came out with more memory or horsepower. It’s only obsolete when it no longer does what you want it to do. Consider my main digital camera. Although I get to see and play with a large number of cameras every year, I’ve stuck with what you’ll surely consider to be an ancient model—the several-year-old Olympus D-620L. I like this camera because it has a TTL viewfinder and an excellent macro, or close focus, mode. The downside? It’s a mere 1.4 megapixels. That’s so Twentieth Century. That’s okay, though—I use the camera to take screenshots for books, magazines, and Web sites. I rarely need a resolution much beyond 1,024 × 768 for those applications, and that’s well within the capability of this venerable old camera. For my more creative photography, I upgraded to the 5-megapixel Olympus e20n last year, and I suspect it will make me very happy for the next several years.

The bottom line? Find a camera you like and stick with it. Digital cameras are a costly investment, and they won’t “pay for themselves” in film savings if you replace them every year or so with a newer model.