Camera Price vs. Features Balance
Just like with cell phones and laptops, the digital camera market has become more crowded and confusing than ever these days. It's easy to get ripped off. To that end, it helps to have a set of ground rules; things you must have in a camera. Once you determine all those things, it just becomes a price game at that point. Some things to look for:
- Megapixels - Sure, it's important, but please see my caveats on interpolation below.
- Video Capability - It's not gonna be like your camcorder, but it's nice to have some on-the-fly video functionality and a decent built-in mic for capturing audio. Some even have YouTube-ready formatting!
- Geo-Location - If you're flying to a foreign location for your honeymoon, some cameras have neat GPS tagging options so you can see exactly where you took that snapshot on your remote hike in the Peruvian Andes.
- WiFi & Docking - Want to upload pics directly to Flickr or Photobucket from your camera? It's possible now if you have a solid WiFi connection. And there are wide ranges of docking stations that will make instant printing and transferring pics to your computer really simple.
- Memory Card Slots - If you obsess over snapping every little shot, you're going to need a bigger memory card. Most digital cameras only have a sliver of onboard storage. Good news? 1GB SD cards are dirt cheap these days; around $10-$20 if you know where to look.
Canon, Fujifilm, Nikon and a wide range of other manufacturers make comparable models, all of which do cool things for low prices. That's where you have to look at what the experts say, and more importantly, what owners say about each camera. Over at Imaging Resource they have a great little cheat sheet for sorting camera reviews by price, by manufacturer, and by megapixel.
Image Interpolation
Interpo-what? It's a big word that means a camera with more megapixels might not always produce better images. iStockPhoto.com has a great write-up on the details of image interpolation and why it'll make all your photos look fuzzy and pixilated, but this pretty much sums it up:"...interpolation is the practice of hardware and software manufacturers sampling neighboring pixels to predict or invent additional pixels, adding resolution to an image."The sales hounds at Best Buy will try to sell you on megapixels, but if you ask them about interpolation and their response is to stare blankly into space, go elsewhere or shop online.
