Your First Digital Camera
There is a wide range of digital cameras available. The prices can vary from $20 to $1000. When you go to the store and actually see them on display or in the boxes, they all just kind of blend together… you don’t even know what to ask for!
Here is my suggestion for your first digital camera: Get a lower-but-not-lowest end camera for your first. Do not spend more than $200 or less than $50. Here’s why:
- The cheapest cameras have the picture quality of a cell-phone’s pictures (yes, they take pictures now) which is not very good. If you aren’t satisfied with your pictures, you won’t be taking a lot of pictures or be inclined to learn about sharing your pictures over the internet. You should get a camera that will produce good enough pictures to put in your photo album.
- If you spend a whole lot of money and get a high-end camera, you will have lots of features and settings to learn about. Getting overwhelmed with options, and ending up not using features that you have paid for is going to keep you from using your camera all together. A big waste of money.
Lucky for us, the cost of digital cameras has come down enough where you can get a decent basic camera for a reasonable price.
Here are the features I think are important.
- At least 1 Megapixel – The higher the number of megapixels, the finer “grain” your digital pictures can have. Basically, the higher the megapixels, the sharper the image. For general use 1 to 3 megapixels is sufficient.
- Telephoto/Zoom– This is the same as your analog (regular) camera. I personally like the ability to zoom in as close as I can, but just so long as your first camera has this feature in some form, you should be okay.
- Built in Flash–Some of the lower-end cameras do not come with a flash, which makes any pictures you take indoors rather dark.
- Removable Storage–Some cameras use only their built-in/internal memory to hold the pictures you have taken (this is like a non-removable disk or chip inside the camera). However, when it’s full, and you’re not near your computer to download the pictures (take the pictures out of the camera), you’re done taking pictures. With a “memory stick” or “memory card” for your camera, which functions as a floppy disk or CD does for your computer, you just take it out and replace it with a blank one.
If your camera has these basic features, it should be of good enough quality for most of your pictures. If you find that you really use your camera a lot and really feel comfortable with it, perhaps then you can think about upgrading to a high-end camera. That way, you know you are investing the big bucks in something you are actually going to use.
My experience: I went through a lot of cheapo cameras. The first one that actually got me excited about digital pictures was an Olympus D-100 Camedia which we purchased for about $180 5 years ago. You can get these at discount stores and drugstores now for a LOT less. I took a lot of pictures of reasonable quality with this camera. For the same money I spent back in the day, you can get an extremely high quality camera (about 7 megapixels) with the other features I mentioned.
(FYI: I upgraded to a Sony Cyber Shot, which cost me about $500 about a year ago. The picture quality is absolutely wonderful with my Sony Cybershot. I love it. (It can also take video clips.) However, it is rather large and gets heavy when I carry it around. I am considering getting another Olympus or one of the newer cameras of around $180 to keep in my purse.)
Do you have a question or experience you want to share about your first digital camera? Please leave a comment and let me know.
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Comments
Thank you for sharing your experience, Patti T! I am planning on doing an article very soon about sharing the pictures and VIDEOS on the internet. Hopefully, we can inspire more people to take the plunge into digital photography!
I have a question…We’re probably going to take the plunge and get a digital camera for Christmas. My 5 year old Kodak 35mm is nice, but the hassle of having film developed, saved on a disk, etc. can be eliminated. Plus those shots I usually take where half of the picture could be cropped before being printed would no longer waste film either.
Also, it’s time to upgrade the printer to the computer as well.
Are most printers compatable with all digital cameras? What should I look for when comparing cameras and printers? I probably won’t want hard copies of all the digital pictures taken, but want the option of printing quality pictures when I do.
Thanks for your help in advance
Cindhugs: Thank you for your question. Witchy Tech will discuss printing pictures in detail in a later article. But here is a general answer: Camera and Printer don’t “talk” directly to each other so you do not need to consider one when buying the other. (If you have a printer you can plug your camera directly into, it is still no problem. Your camera acts as a storage disk for images.)
But you will need to know this: If you want high-quality photos, like the kind you get when your regular film is developed, you will need a photo printer. This is not the same as a regular computer printer.. it uses different ink and blank photograph paper.
I would say that if your document printer needs upgrading, then that is where your money should go. There are alternatives to having your own photo printer. (Just take your memory card to almost any drugstore or discount store and you can edit and print your pictures for $0.10 - $0.20 per photo, or use an online photo service and order prints of your digital pictures.) And in a pinch, a good document printer can print a pretty good photograph if you keep photopaper on-hand.
Do some research online or in consumer magazines before you buy a printer. How well they print color images and photos is often one of the features measured.
I hope this helps you out! Watch for more articles on digital photography coming soon!
Our children got us our digital camera for Christmas 3 years ago, it is the best present we ever got from them. We take so many pictures now, still have not used the video clip feature yet. It is just awesome to me that you can take a picture and share it on the internet in minutes!!