How to Buy a Digital Camera

Purchasing a Digital Camera can seem like a daunting task. All those numbers, 2.1 megapixels, 640 x 480, 2 MB Flash memory, who can understand or convert between different cameras?

This tutorial will help you understand what all those terms mean, which aspects of a digital camera you may be interested in while shopping, and be able to compare different cameras with seemingly different descriptive terms.

Digital cameras allow for instant access to your pictures. Most cameras on the market have an LCD screen to view the pictures immediately. You can then choose which pictures to keep and which to delete. Using different methods, you can then send the pictures to your computer to email them, print, or store them for future use.

Important Characteristics of Digital Cameras

Depending on what you want to use the camera for, different characteristics will interest you over others. As your features increase, so does the price.

Resolution

The resolution of your digital camera tells you how sharp the pictures will come out. The resolution is measured in dpi, or dots per inch. It is a expressed in pixels, each pixel is a dot of color. For example, 640 x 480 has 480 lines from top to bottom and 640 pixels that make up each of those lines. A typical inexpensive camera will be 640 x 480, which is suitable for web or emailing, but if you want to print pictures, anything below 1280 x 1024 is probably unacceptable. When a camera has more than a million pixels, it is commonly referred to as a "megapixel" camera. For example, a description of a camera may say "Digital Zoom Camera, 1.5 megapixel, 1280 x 1024 resolution." This camera has over 1 million pixels, which means it is a high quality camera.

Next Page: More Digital Camera Features