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Shopping Tips for Buying a Budget Camera
By Christina Mulberry
Digital cameras have evolved in the past several years. Image quality has improved significantly with better sensors, lenses, and ever evolving features. Many consumers however are on a tight budget and are uncertain about their ability to afford one of these cameras. Although a camera that costs $300-$500 is going to offer more than a budget camera, it's certainly possible to find a good one between $80 and $120 that will allow the user to capture images to share online and to produce very nice 4x6 and 5x7 prints without difficulty. There are a number of features to consider when shopping for one of these budget cameras.
Image Quality Obviously, the first concern is the quality of the image. Two of the primary factors to consider are the sensor and the lens. With many digital cameras having 8, 10, 12 or more megapixel sensors, shoppers can be concerned when they realize most budget cameras offer 5 to 7 megapixel sensors. This isn't necessarily a problem. A 5 megapixel sensor is perfectly capable of producing great looking prints; it's only when you start enlarging them beyond 9x10 or cropping your pictures that more megapixels become important to the naked eye. Lenses are another important factor. Of course a great lens drives the cost up significantly. There are however a few budget priced cameras that offer Leica or other well regarded lenses. It's something to look for but if everything else about the camera is a hit, shoppers can generally settle for a less costly lens.
Image Stabilization What a diference a steady shot can make! Face it most of us don't use a tripod and thus, we end up with some unintentional movement as we're shooting pictures. Blurry shots are the result of course. Image stabilization features can help to reduce this significantly. Particularly, shoppers should look for optical image stabilization, but in the absence of this, digital stabilization will do.
Zoom Zoom is the feature that allows you to get up close shots of subjects that are more distant. Again, what a shopper should look for is optical zoom rather than digital for the highest quality picture. Many budget cameras do offer at least 3 or 4x optical zoom.
Features for Ease of Use Many of us find occasion to include ourselves in our pictures. A self-timer makes that easy so be sure your camera choice includes this feature. A built-in flash is important for indoor and shaded shots but of course the ability to turn it off is also important. Red eye reduction is useful as well and most people benefit from having a variety of shooting modes available. The shooting modes allow you to adjust white balance and so forth with the push of a single button. Many cameras offer multiple shooting modes such as night, beach, action, and so forth so that your shots come out with the right exposure and clarity. Another ease of use consideration is the screen, shoppers should handle a camera before making the decision to buy. The ability to frame a shot well depends on the screen and how easy it is to view. Of course simple menus and controls are also critical.
Connectivity Obviously if you have to transfer your photos to computer or print them you want to be sure you have a compatible connection and operating system with the camera. If you hope to print your own photos at home, clearly you would need an appropriate printer as well.
Storage A final thing to consider is storage. Ideally, your camera would offer expandable memory that would allow you to insert a memory card for 2GB or more. This would allow you to store more photos before having to download them to computer or other storage device. Buying a good digital camera and staying within a limited budget really isn't too difficult if you have basic photography needs. Handling the camera first can be important but going back and buying online can bring the best deals. |
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This intel was contributed by mulberry
mulberry
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May, 2012
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