Everything But The Weed

Approved by:
Linda Maze, a Wedding photography Gainesville FL in Gainesville Florida

Cameras that use film are so old fashioned now, digital cameras have stormed onto the scene and totally dominated it, yet they can be really tricky to shop for. These cameras are crammed with so much technology now that you need to wade through lists of acronyms and hyped up blurb trying to figure out what it all means before you can make a choice. Below are some tips to help you pick your perfect camera:

Stop worrying about megapixels: Megapixels are hyped up too much, what most people don’t realize is that above about 8 megapixels then the only difference it will make is to the size of the photo, not the quality, and therefore how much you can zoom in if you are editing it etc. So unless you do intense photo editing and you need to zoom in really really close to the picture, or you need to get prints which are the size of posters, then don’t use megapixels as the deciding factor when you are looking at cameras.

Looking at total zoom: You’ll find there are two types of zoom on a digital camera. You have digital zoom which is fake and is just where software in the camera zooms in closer on the image you already have, and optical zoom which is the real zoom when the lens moves out to focus on an area. Most cameras will quote you ‘total zoom’ in their specs, which is optical x digital, but that can cleverly mask a poor optical zoom if they want it to. If you have a camera with 2x optical zoom then the manufacturer can stick in a 10x digital zoom and suddenly you have 20x total zoom, the same amount as a camera with 10x optical and 2x digital zoom. So you can see why it is important to look at the value for the optical zoom when you are considering a camera.

Not trying them out: While a camera might look great on paper or the computer screen, when you get it then it could be a totally different story. You might find that the LCD screen is impossible to see in sunlight, that the settings are hard to navigate, that it is uncomfortable to hold and hard to get the memory card in etc. All these things you can only find out by actually getting your hands on one and trying it out. To do that pop into an electrical store and ask to try a display model out, usually they will be more than happy to oblige, and then you can find out what it is really like.

Those three tips should help you to avoid the big mistakes that people make when searching for a digital camera, so you can spend your money on a camera that you will actually enjoy using and will give you great pictures to enjoy for years to come!

If you are going on holiday then consider getting a pink waterproof digital camera to liven things up!