There are so many types of digital cameras out there. Dozens of brands, hundreds of models litter the shelves of the local electronics stores, making it difficult to pick the right one. This article is meant to help you pick the right camera for blogging, but it will also be very appropriate for anyone doing snapshot/documentary type work.
I am a pretty big camera aficionado, and when time and location permits, I use a digital SLR for all of my photography. Unfortunately, the life of a work commuting, constantly moving individual makes it a but clumsy to carry my SLR backpack everywhere I go. So, I have been slowly searching for just the right camera for day to day, always carrying needs. I carry a big backpack everywhere I go, so size isn’t a huge issue, but let’s be realistic, smaller is better when your talking a snapshot camera.
Resolution
The oft discussed, even more overrated feature of digital cameras these days is resolution. You will see everything from 3 to 9 megapixel cameras on the average store shelves these days and it makes buying a quality camera difficult. I hope to put these concerns to ease with a few statements. Resolution, in snapshot type cameras, is often completely irrelevant. The two keys to consider are your printing needs, and the quality of the camera. Lets face it, camera manufacturers know that more megapixels sells. The average consumer, who rarely prints and even when they do never go above a 4×6, at max an 8×10, will find themselves wasting money on an 8 megapixel camera. The truth of the matter is an 8 megapixel point and shoot suffers quality problems above and beyond resolution because they are trying to pack that much resolution on a sensor half the size of an average postage stamp. Stick in the 5-6 megapixel sweet spot and you will be great, but don’t look away from a quality 3-4 megapixel camera if your budget is tight, you will find a quality Canon, Nikon or Sony 3 Megapixel camera will take much better photos than an off brand 7 megapixel camera.
The Rest
The major key factors for me once you get past resolution were a rechargeable battery, high ISO capability and a quality lens. I will have to be honest that I am a bit brand conscious so I didn’t look at any cameras from anyone other than Canon, Nikon, Sony, Pentax and Fuji. It was lucky for me that I was able to catch a sale at CompUSA that offered a free 1GB memory card with any digital camera purchase, so the last key, memory type, wasn’t a factor. Usually, I will shy away from Sony because of the non standard memory type, but in this case I had actually just sold a Sony PSP and had 1GB of Memory Stick Pro Duo handy, so I was looking in that direction.
The camera I chose is the Sony Cyber-shot DSC-W50. I have had a week to play with it, and I am pretty happy with my selection. The street price is about $200 US. The DSC-W50 is a 6 Megapixel camera. It has a 3X optical zoom, it has digital also, but I would never use that as it degrades image quality quite a bit. It has a 38-114mm 35mm equivalent lens range, built in flash, video capability, f2.8-7.1 aperture, 1/8 – 1/2000 sec shutter speed, a macro minimum focus length of 2cm. A 2.5″ LCD is also pretty nice. The ISO range is 80-1000 so you have a good range there as well.
You will find several models from the other major manufacturers with similar specs and would provide as good of results as well. The key is don’t get sold on pure resolution, look at the capabilities and look at the results. Be sure to check out the review of your prospective camera at www.dpreview.com, and also search for actual photos taken by camera model at www.pbase.com to see real world results instead of photoshopped PR pics.
So that’s it folks, keep these ideas in mind and find yourself a nice camera without breaking the bank. Happy blogging.
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