Tuesday, September 22, 2009

What You Should Know Before Buying a Digital Camera

By Daniel Henderlei

The key technical component of digital photography is the semiconductor. Light is focused onto a semiconductor, creating a digital image. Digital images have let us enter a new paperless age of photography as images can be stored on computers instead of printed.

Creativity is highly personal, and it is what drives photography. When planning to get a digital camera, talk to those you know who own one. Extensive information is available on the Internet, so that you don't make your purchase blindly.

For nature lovers who take photos of the great outdoors, a large zoom lens is very helpful. For those of you want to shoot photos of their kids involved in an activity, a fast response time is key, as children move around quickly. For set photos where family and friends are posing, you'll probably want a model that takes pictures in dim light.

For digital cameras, you've got the Point-and-Shoot and the Digital SLR. If you're a novice stick a simple model that's well-rounded - resist the temptation to splurge your money on a super-advanced camera, because you'll be paying for a lot that you'll never use. By the time you learn to use it, you'll probably be wanting another camera with even more cool features.

The Point-and-Shoot camera

The Point-and-Shoot is the camera for beginners. Many of the settings are automatic, and the camera can adjust to many different environments and lighting. Some cameras come with scene modes, which have predetermined settings for modes such as Outdoors, Indoors, Sunlight, and Snow.

With automatic settings, the focal length and ISO (light sensitivity) values are set for you. Different types of cameras focus on different settings.

Compact cameras are slim and can be small enough to easily fit in your pocket. Most offer wide-angle and zoom lenses, as well as features like blur reduction and image stabilization. You can find cameras with large LCD displays despite the compactness of the camera.

Optical zoom cameras can capture small details that compact cameras might not be able to. Optical zoom is different than digital zoom - with optical zoom, the image is physically adjusted and looks natural. Digital zoom crops the image and then enlarges it, which can reduce image quality. Not everyone has use for an optical zoom; beginners probably don't need one unless they love distant landscape type shots.

The Single Lens Reflex (Digital SLR) Camera

The Single Lens Reflex has a dual-function lens. The lens captures the image and shows it to you in the viewfinder. SLRs offer features such as interchangeable lenses, lots of customization, and a wide array of manual controls. You can create photos of any composition you desire. Depth of field and focus will be adjusted automatically by the camera. This camera allows the photographer to be as creative as they wish.

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