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September 13, 2006
A guide to buying digital cameras
I am shopping for a new digital camera. Naturally this has involved a fair amount of research on brands and features. There are a lot of options out there and deciding which camera is right for you can be a challenge. In the interest of helping other consumers with this often-confusing task, I would like to pass on some of what I have learned:
There's more to a digital camera than just megapixels and battery life. What's the shutter lag time? Point three is pretty good, certainly preferable to one point one, but is it genuinely better than point five? And don't confuse shutter lag with next-shot delay, which remember has nothing to do with flash range, which can be anywhere from seven to 21.
Optical zoom is also important, though you should know whether it's mechanical zoom, which is probably better than non-mechanical but also drains away battery life. Oh and if you're planning to do a lot of zooming it's handy to have a built-in image stabilizer though some stabilizers are optical while others are simulated and optical beats simulated but simulated is likely what you'll get in a smaller, pocket-sized cameras, which are more convenient but often have less zoom capability except when they have more, which is sometimes the case. You'll also want to ask whether the camera can take wide-angle pictures and if so does its software allow for real-time stitching of panoramic shots and, if it does, will someone please stop putting so many damn features on these things because seriously I'm just about at the end of my rope here and ALL I WANT IS A FREAKING CAMERA THAT TAKES DECENT PICTURES AND DOESN'T HAVE AN INSTRUCTION BOOKLET THE THICKNESS OF A DOCTORAL DISSERTATION SO ENOUGH WITH THE SCI-FI FEATURES THAT I'LL NEVER FIGURE OUT HOW TO USE ANYWAY PLEASE, PLEASE, PLEASE JUST MAKE IT STOP AHHHHH!
Hope that was helpful.
Posted by teb at September 13, 2006 01:10 PM