How to Choose Your First Digital Camera

Choosing your first digital camera can be incredibly confusing. Fortunately, there are some surefire tactics you can use to make the selection of a digital camera much easier.

Uses
First, you need to decide what you will use your digital camera for. Are you just going to take pictures of your kids, or do you want high-quality images that can be used in magazines? Do you want to get creative with the picture taking process or do you want to be able to just point and click?

Your answer to these questions can cut your list of cameras down dramatically. For example, if you simply want to take great photos of your family without a lot of fuss that cuts out most of the high grade digital cameras such as the Canon Rebel and the Nikon D40. These cameras are nice, but they have a lot of bells and whistles that the average Joe photographer won’t need.

Features
Let’s take a closer look at what makes a great digital camera great.

First, you will need to know the minimum amount of megapixels that your camera needs to be functional for you. Megapixels are the tiny dots that make up a digital image. The more dots you have, the higher quality the picture will be. Also, pictures taken by a camera with a high count of megapixels can be blown up without the image becoming grainy.

Here is a list of what to expect from different megapixel counts:

1 to 2 Megapixels
A digital camera with 2 megapixels is not worth most people’s time. This camera is only good for those with very limited money who want to post pictures on the internet. Think camera phone quality when choosing one of these low quality cameras.

3 to 5 Megapixels
These digital cameras are for the casual photographers who want to take great photos. These are a little more expensive than the lower megapixel cameras, but you will get great quality for your buck.

6 Megapixels and Higher
These cameras are fantastic for someone who wants to get into professional photography. Anything 7 megapixels and over will easily work for major glossy magazines and high-end websites. These cameras are quite a bit more expensive than the lower megapixel cameras, but remember, you get what you pay for.

Other features that you should look for are zoom, auto shoot, and ISO settings. Zoom will let you take pictures of things that are farther away. Pros and novice photographers love this feature, but most people won’t need a digital camera that zooms farther than 10x. Auto shoot allows you to just point and click. It is a great feature for those who don’t want to fool around with settings. ISO settings let you control how much light is used when creating a photo. These settings are great for taking action shots and low light shots.

It is important to take all of these things into consideration when buying a digital camera for the first time. You will end up getting what you need, and won’t need to upgrade as soon.