How To Choose A Digital Camera

There is FIVE things you need to know about digital cameras.

First - Megapixels

The megapixels of a digital camera refers to the array of recorded pixels on the vertical multiplied by the horizontal array.
The megapixel of sensors for camera's come in the following sizes.

Compact Digitals - Nikon, Canon, Leica, Pentax, Samsung, Panasonic, Sony etc.

• 2.0 megapixel
• 3.2 megapixel
• 4.0 megapixel
• 5.0 megapixel
• 6.1 megapixel
• 7.0 megapixel
• 8.0 megapixel
• 10.0 megapixel
• 12.0 megapixel
• 14.0 megapixel

Digital SLR Cameras - Nikon, Canon, Pentax, Sony etc.

• 6.1 megapixel
• 8.2 megapixel
• 11.1 megapixel
• 12.4 megapixel
• 16 megapixel
• 22 megapixel
• 24.5 megapixel

Digital Backs - Hasselblad.

• 16 megapixel
• 22 megapixel
• 39 megapixel
• 50 megapixel
• 60 megapixel

On digital camera brochures they mention the megapixels of the camera, they state effective megapixels and recorded megapixels. Effective megapixels is the total amount of pixels on the CCD at manufacture. The recorded megapixels is the pixels which actual record the image.

Second - Print Size

The megapixels of a camera also can tell the photo realistic print size.

• 2.0 megapixel (8x10in or A4 photo realistic)
• 3.2 megapixel (11x12in or A3 photo realistic)
• 4.0 megapixel (12x16in)
• 5.0 megapixel (16x20in)
• 6.1 megapixel
• 7.0 megapixel
• 8.0 megapixel
• 11 megapixel
• 12.4 megapixel
• 16 megapixel
• 22 megapixel
• 39 megapixel
• 50 megapixel
• 60 megapixel

Third - Features

Optical Zoom v's Digital Zoom

Cameras are advertised with optical zoom or digital zoom.
Optical zoom uses the glass elements of the camera to give a clean precise image while digital zoom is a cropping method done in the software of the camera and results in pixilation of the image.

Image Stabilisation (Canon = IS, Nikon = VR, Pentax = Anti-Shake)

Image stabilisation is a camera manufacturer design to allow the user to hand-hold the camera and take sharp images when there is movement. An example of image stabilisation is used when photographing from Planes, Trains and Cars. Image stabilisation also allows the user to photograph in low light situations without using a flash.

Image stabilisation is performed differently by manufacturers. Canon and Nikon use a float lens element to stabilise the image while Pentax and Sony move the senor. There is advantages and disadvantages of both systems:

Floating Lens Image Stabilisation:

• Advantage - not moving the sensor.
• Disadvantage - not all lenses can be image stabilised.

Sensor Image Stabilisation:

• Advantage - all lenses now become image stabilised
• Disadvantage - may cause the sensor to become out of alignment. (have not seen this yet).

Dust Removal:

Digital SLR cameras are prone to dust due to interchanging lenses. The dust settles on the sensor and when you take a photo black dots will appear on the image. Some camera manufacturers have over come this issue by incorporating a sensor clean when the camera turns on. The sensor shacks back and forth to unsettle any dust and moves it to a dust catcher below the sensor.

Fourth - Storage Device

All digital cameras use different storage media to store the images.
Storage media comes in the following:
Compact Flash Cards (CF), Smart Media (SM), Secure Digital (SD), XD, Memory Stick (MS), Memory Stick Pro (MSP), Microdrive and Multimedia Card (MMC).

Memory Sizes come in:

• 1GB
• 2GB
• 4GB
• 8GB
• 16GB
• 32GB

MB - Megabytes
GB - Gigabytes

Not all memory storage cards are available in the above sizes.

Manufacturers Use:

• Nikon - Secure Digital in low end and Compact Flash in DSLR.
• Canon - Secure Digital in low end and Compact Flash in DSLR.
• Olympus - XD in low end and Compact Flash in DSLR.
• Fuji - XD in low end and Compact Flash and MicroDrive in DSLR.
• Ricoh - Secure Digital.
• Kyocera - Secure Digital. (Discontinued)
• Casio - Secure Digital.
• Contax - Secure Digital. (Discontinued)
• Leica - Secure Digital.
• Sony - Memory Stick and Memory Stick Pro in low end digital cameras and Compact Flash in DSLR.
• Samsung - Secure Digital.
• Vivitar - Secure Digital.
• Kodak - Secure Digital and Multimedia Card.
• Konica Minolta - Secure Digital in low end digital and Compact Flash in DSLR. (Now Sony)
• Pentax - Secure Digital in low end and Compact Flash in DSLR.
• Hasselblad - Use digital camera backs which use a 40GB HDD connected to the camera or Extreme IV Compact flash cards.

DSLR - Digital Single Lens Reflex
HDD - Hard Disk Drive
GB - Gigabytes

Fifth - Battery

Most digital cameras these days have switched over to a Lithium ion battery system. This is due to the fact that the LCD monitors on the back of the cameras are very power hungry.

With STD AA batteries in the original digital cameras with the monitor running lasted roughly about 10-15min. Rechargeable AA batteries do last about 30-60min with the monitor running. The new Lithium Ion batteries have taken the time up to 4-5 hours with the monitor running. The only down fall is that once the Lithium battery has run out you need to recharge the battery or have a spare battery charged. If you can get away from not using the monitor then the above times will increase drastically. You can get away with not using the monitor as some digital cameras do come with a rangefinder, but however you can fall into parallax error. So most consumers like to run the monitor as what you see on the screen is what is recorded. The monitors also do not function well in bright sunlight situation. So getting use to the rangefinder will help with battery power as well as viewing in bright sunlight.