| PMA Editorial Bank |
Rick Sammon For Photo Marketing Association International (PMAI)
 Digital cameras come in all sizes, shapes and price ranges. Before you buy a camera, consider your total budget and your picture taking interests and needs. (Photo by Rick Sammon) |
If you've been taking film pictures for years and are now thinking about jumping into digital photography, here are the key things you should consider. Total photography budget. Give yourself a total budget for your digital photography. In addition to a camera, you will need some accessories to complete your digital darkroom: memory cards for storing pictures, perhaps a docking station or memory card reader, an inkjet printer to make your own prints, inkjet ink and paper, photo-imaging software, and CDs on which to save your pictures. If you spend your entire photo budget on a camera, you man not be able to get all the accessories you want or need. Number of megapixels. Megapixels are the key to the quality of your pictures, generally speaking. One- and two-megapixel cameras take photos that are good for emailing, but not for high quality printing.
Three-megapixel cameras are good if you want to make prints up to 8x10 inches. For larger prints, you'll need at least a four-megapixel camera. Zoom range. Low-end digital cameras come with either a fixed lens or a zoom with a limited range, usually around 2X. Those cameras are fine for around-the-house and similar snapshots. For sports and travel photography, you'll probably want a digital camera with at least a 4X optical zoom range. Many digital cameras also offer a digital zoom in addition to an optical zoom lens. Digital zooms are not zoom lenses. Rather, they magnify (enlarge) the center of the camera's sensor frame for a larger image. In doing so, grain (actually called "noise" in a digital camera) is increased. So, use a digital zoom sparing. If you want to get closer, do what the pros do who don't have a zoom lens: zoom with your feet; move closer to your subject! Shooting modes. All digital cameras offer an automatic mode.
Some offer an automatic and a manual mode. And some models offer shooting modes for specific situations: sports, landscapes, close-up, portraiture and nighttime. These modes set the camera's aperture and shutter speed for optimum results. Ease of image transfer. Taking a picture is only the first step in digital photography. The next step is to get your pictures into your computer. There are several ways to do that. You can use a memory card reader that plugs into your computer's USB or Fire Wire port. Docking stations, which double as battery chargers, are another option. Some cameras, plug directly into a computer via Fire Wire ports for fast transfer of large files. And for digital camera owners whose recording media is a CD or memory stick, you can insert those CDs and sticks directly into a Sony computer.
Oh yes, there is one more item that you may want to include in your new digital darkroom: more RAM (random access memory) for your computer. The more RAM you have the faster your memory-hungry programs will run. In addition, if you have a basic computer, you may, in fact, need more RAM to run your camera, photo-imaging and printer programs at the same time. Happy camera shopping - and happy picture taking.
Rick Sammon is the author of The Complete Guide to Digital Photography, published by W. W. Norton.