Choosing The Right Digital Camera For You

Let's get something straight right out of the box. If you're looking to buy a new digital camera, you don't really have to be an expert in pixels and mega pixels and all that kind of stuff. If you expect to find that kind of deep technical discussion here, you're in the wrong place. Actually, there's a whole lot of stuff you don't really need to know before tackling the daunting task of choosing the right digital camera for you. First of all, forget all the high-tech jargon. It's mostly a lot of sales hype anyway. Choosing a good unit is pretty simple really...pretty much all you have to remember is that the higher the mega pixel rating on the front of the camera, the bigger picture you can make without it breaking up into little chunks (called pixels) and most likely the more cash it's likely going to pry out of your pocket. Each model has an array of techno-widgets that go by different names but they all have the same basic focus, to help you take a better picture. I have a quick (and admittedly simplistic) overview of the pixel story. The shot on the left on my web page http://www.great-nature-photography.com/digital-cameras.html is one I took with a high pixel rating and the one on the right was with a much lower rating. They've been enlarged way beyond what you would normally do, but I do have a point to make here. If you look carefully you can see there's a terrific difference in the way they look or, in the 'resolution'. The image on the right has already broken up into small pieces (pixels) (I hope) you can readily see. The picture on the left was magnified several times more than the one on the right which should give you an idea of how big you can enlarge it and still retain a fairly decent result. By the way, these shots are of a very, very small piece of a picture I took of snapdragons in our front yard. A camera with a 5.0 mega pixel rating or higher can produce a decent 16X20 print but one with a 2.0 mega pixel rating or lower should be restricted to a maximum of 4X6 prints. For the most part, you won't be happy with pictures any larger than 4X6 from the lower rated camera. Okay, Let's Pick A Camera... Well, I have my favorites and my not-so favorites. When I looked at all the digital cameras available, I was more than a little astounded at the vast selection of available equipment. It seems that every company that