Places to Buy Digital Camera From
As with a traditional camera, the more you pay for your digital camera, the more features and better quality images you will get. Bear in mind that digital cameras are more expensive than their traditional equivalents so don’t expect to get printquality images from a digital cameras that costs less than £200.
If you just want to try out digital photography for fun and only intend to use the images to email to friends and relatives or upload onto your website, then a simple point-and-shoot camera with relatively low resolution may suit you fine.
If you want to use your digital cameras as your main camera and intend to order prints of some of your images to put in an album, then you are going to need to consider one of the megapixel cameras currently on the market. These range from simple point-and-shoot cameras to fully featured SLR-style ones.
Resolution
The resolution refers to the number of pixels captured by the camera’s image sensor or CCD. Early digital cameras and those at the low end of the market have what is known as VGA resolution with 640 pixels across the image and 480 down.
At this resolution, an image can only really be used for email or for putting on a website. If you print the image out or try to enlarge it, it will appear pixelated.
The term megapixel is used to mean a million pixels and refers to the total number of pixels in an image. For example, the Canon PowerShot A10 produces images with 1,280 pixels across the top and 960 pixels across the bottom, making the total number of pixels approximately 1.3 million or 1.3 megapixels. The greater the number of pixels, the more you can enlarge the image before it will appear pixelated.
However, the higher the resolution of an image, the bigger its file size and the more storage space you’ll need. Some cameras quote two resolution sizes, in which case the larger image size is usually interpolated.
What happens is that the CCD has the number of pixels quoted in the lower figure, but some clever software adds pixels to the image by evaluating the surrounding pixels and producing additional matching ones. This enables you to print larger images without them appearing pixelated, but the quality of the image suffers.
Budget (£0-£199)
Cameras in this price range are designed mainly for snapshots. At or below the £100 price level, you’re into ‘webcam’ territory – cameras designed to be used either connected to your computer as basic video cameras, or carried around with you for capturing short movie clips or still images. The photographic features are usually pretty basic. You point and shoot and leave the camera to sort out exposure and focussing itself. There’s little photographic control on offer here, so these cameras are only appropriate if you’re looking for cheap and cheerful results – though it has to be said that their simplicity of operation makes them ideal for kids or photographic novices. If you’re at all interested in developing your photographic skills, you need to buy at the top end of this price range or you’ll be disappointed both by the results and the lack of creative control.
Mid-range (£200-£599)
It’s in this price range that you start to get ‘serious’ digital cameras. Towards the bottom of the range, makers are still selling point-and-shoot cameras that may not offer much in the way of manual control, but you may be able to apply exposure compensation for tricky subjects. Once you get to the £300-£400 price range, lens quality improves, the CCD resolution increases and most cameras incorporate zoom lenses. Keen photographers should look out for cameras that offer a range of exposure modes, from fully-programmed auto to shutter-priority and aperture-priority automation right through to full manual control over both shutter speed and aperture. You’ll often get a choice of light metering patterns, too, from all-purpose ‘pattern’ or ‘matrix’ systems designed for the majority of subjects to ‘spot’ metering that reads the light from a central portion of the image only.
High-end (£600+)
High-end digital cameras are designed for those people who want the ultimate in both picture quality and photographic control. You can expect the range of exposure modes and metering patterns described for mid-range cameras, highquality lenses and extended zoom ranges. You’re likely to get other advanced features, too, like ‘auto-bracketing’. This is where the camera takes a series of three photos of the same subject in rapid succession, but use different exposures – you pick the best exposure afterwards.
Nikon cameras offer a clever ‘Best Shot Selector’ for low light levels – it takes a series of identical shots, but only saves the sharpest to the memory card. Your camera may also enable you to change the contrast, colour saturation and sharpness of your image before it’s saved, and some offer a RAW mode that preserves maximum-quality picture information for editing on your computer. It’s also possible to buy digital SLR cameras, but these start at around the £2,000 level and are aimed at professionals.
