Before you start buying digital camera
Do you know answer on these questions:
1. Do you know what is sensor size?
2. Do you know what is megapixel and is it always best to have more megapixels?
3. Do you know difference between optical and digital zoom?
4. Do you know what is ISO (sensitivity)?
If you answered on all or on some of these question with NO read these explanations:
1. Sensor Size
Sensor is a place where you picture is captured. Film cameras use film for capturing shots and digital camera use sensors. Sensors are quite expensive so manufacturers usually make them as small as possible. Beware of that! In film cameras one shot is captured on a 24x36mm piece of film and in some cheaper cameras sensor size can be only 3x4mm. When you are making a print from a film you can enlarge it 8 times and get 8''x10'' image . To achieve that size of image you have to enlarge digital picture from 3x4mm sensor 60 times !!! That can create very big deformations on print. If you shook your hand a little or if someone on picture moved a little- everything is 60 times bigger. That mean you will get very low quality photos.
Tip:
ALWAYS ASK THE SELLER FOR THE SENSOR SIZE IN mm before buying a digital camera !!!
2. Megapixel
Pixel is a tiny dot which saves a information about small part of a picture. Every pixel has three or four dimensions. For example : Red, Green and Blue, or Cyan, Magenta, Yellow and Black. Megapixel is 1 million pixels and it is use to explain resolution of a camera. When you are making a 4''x6'' print of your photos you need 1.03 megapixels.(Photos usually need 200 DPI (this is the number of pixels per inch) so 4"x6" photo have 4*200 x 6*200=800 x 1200=1030400pixels=1.03 megapixels). When buying a digital camera its better to choose a camera with bigger sensor than with more megapixels.
Tip:
Table with print sizes and megapixels needed for that
| email photos | 4"x6" (72DPI) | 288 x 432 pixels | 0.12 megapixels |
| vacation and family photos | 4"x6" (200DPI) | 800x1200 | 1.03 megapixels |
| vacation and family photos | 6"x9"(200DPI) | 1200x1800 | 2.16 megapixels |
| artistic and semi proffesional shots | 8"x10"(240DPI) | 1920x2400 | 4.6 megapixels |
So unless you are a proffesional photographer you don't need more that 5 megapixles.
3. Optical and Digital Zoom
Optical zoom is a real zoom that is created by moving lens elements inside lens. If you have 3x optical zoom it means that you can enlarge detail on picture 3 times without losing any information.
Digital zoom is artificial zoom and it just enlarge part of a picture but with great detail and resolution loss. So it is totally unusable. It is used only by sellers to say that their camera have a big zoom but in reality that is not zoom at all.
Tip:
Before you buy a camera check out a sticker on a camera that say how much optical and how much digital zoom it have. Also you can check what is written in front of the lens. Usually it has some measures in mm. (for example 5.8-24mm) If you divide bigger number with smaller you will get optical zoom. And also if you multiply those numbers with 4.83 you will get equivalent for film camera lenses (in this case 5.8-24mm is like 28-116mm on film camera)
What are all those mm for?
If you shoot landscapes or architecture you need wide lens (<=28mm for film cameras and <=5.8 for digital cameras) because they have bigger angle of view and objects you want to photograph are very big (buildings, mountains...)
If you shoot interior, people, streets you need normal lens (50 mm for film cameras and around 10.5 for digital camera). Their angle is smaller and those lens are close to human eye. (what you see with eye you will see on photo)
If you shoot portraits you will need portrait lens (75-105mm for film cameras and 15.5-21.7 for digital cameras ) They have no deformations so they are used for making portraits.
If you want to shoot wild animals, birds... you will need telephoto lens (>135mm for film cameras >28mm for digital cameras)
For beginner user best choice is like in example from wide lens to portrait 5.8 - 24mm
4. ISO
This is sensitivity of the film. usually is represented with numbers: 100, 200, 400, 800, 1600, 3200... Bigger number represents that sensitivity is bigger. That mean that you can shoot faster with shorter exposure time in low-light conditions.
Buy a camera that have manual exposure settings, because photos without flash have more natural color. You just set sensitivity to higher number and you will be able to shoot without flash even in very low light conditions.
WARNING: one thing you must think about if you set manual exposure - if your lens is 50mm(in film camera measures) you can shoot only with speeds faster than 1/50 (1/100, 1/250, 1/1000...) , if kens is 28 mm (in film camera measures) you can shoot with speeds faster than 1/28.
Otherwise your hands will shake too much and you won't get sharp photo.