There are various type of digital cameras out there, from low to high price, from low features to complete features. No doubt we must be careful when deciding to pick digicam that match with the need and budget. Well, here are few things tobe considered before buying digicam ....


Shape

Make up your mind, gonna use digicam or DSLR. Actually, digicam non SLR could be divided tobe : 'consumer digicam' and 'prosumer digicam'. But in this article, writer decide to call them as 'digicam'.
For Consiseness, it is better if you choose digicam. There plenty type and branded of digicams. Names are Sony, Canon, Nikon are leading the market. This type of camera has fully automatic setting to take photo while manual setting is available too. For some people who don't want tobe confused by various setting before take a shot, this features is gonna make them happy. And additional feature to this digicam is the ability to record moving image (movie) with various format file. The result of course could be playback with your player or PC.

Note that this type of camera has fix lens, which mean that you cannot change the lens at all, what you can do to maximize the ability of the lens is to use a converter and attach additional lens.
For those who want a maximum quality photo, well they could pick DSLR (Digital Single Reflect Lens). With this type of camera, you could explore many possibilities about taking photo, its benefit is the image quality, wide range of ISO you could pick, many accessories available. The most important factor, DSLR camera is changeable lens. There are so many kind of lens out there that you could use with your DSLR, from wide lens, ultra wide lens, zoom lens, or macro lens. The bad news about this camera is its size. This kind of camera has a big body and not practical at all.


Purpose

What do we buy digical camera for?
is it for documentation of an event or for more proffesional purpose?
For taking a snapshot, recreation, or simple documentation of event, ordinary digicam is enought. you will not be bothered by the size or the weight of the camera. Even tough its still possible to do all the documentation mentioned above using DSLR, but from the practical side, the price you pay is too high

Generally, DSLR is use for hoby or proffesional activity. People using this camera consider that taking shot is not 'point and shoot', there are many factors tobe set, that is why they take wonderful pictures, art image, or dramatical event. Their image could 'talk' or 'tell story'...


Resolution

Resolution capacity of a camera is known as megapixel (MP). For normal quality image, 2 megapixels or less image is enough for documentation purposes. But for printing or publishing purpose, the image should 6 megapixels or more to keep the quality of the image maximize
Less megapixels capasity usually found on lowend digital camera, while more capasity is supported by highend digital camera such like DSLR. But these days, there is digicam that reach above 6 megapixel capacity yet it's not DSLR.

Also, Additional source such like finding information or article about digital camera would be nice. There are many review about digital camera in magazines or websites. This information could be held by us before deciding which camera we're gonna pick. The reviews usually contain many subjects, from design, technology, image quality, price, performance, and so on.
Ok good luck for you, have a nice camera hunt....


Medan, 25th of March 2006

by : Arief Kamajaya, freelance photographer