How to buy a Digital Camera

Digital Camera, the word itself is sufficient to signify its importance in this digital world. It is one of the present day need. In present scenario where everyone is busy framing their life’s portrait, the digital camera is very much important. However, there are certain considerations which are to be taken into account before purchasing a new camera. In order to get a camera that gives you the highest level of picture quality, it is better to get familiarize with the knowledge of what makes a digital camera different from another.

Lens-

The lens is the eye of the camera. The digital camera has a lens which brings light into focus on a bed of light sensitive material. With any lens, you'll want to know its maximum aperture, or how wide the lens can open. A wider aperture means it can let in more light. More light means you can take photos more easily where there isn't a lot of lighting. Apertures are rated in f-stops, so when you're looking at a lens you'll often see something like f/3.5 attached to it. That means it has a maximum aperture, or f-stop, of 3.5. This is a pretty standard number. Wide apertures are generally considered to be in the range of f/1.4 through f/2.8. If you need a camera that can photograph easily in lower light, looking for a wide aperture is a good place to start.  Another factor that should be taken into account is the sharpness of the lens.

Role of Pixels-

In the digital camera, that light-sensitive material is a circuit bed called a “CCD.” The CCD plays the same role as a film in a film camera and the lens allows light to fall onto the CCD which is then converted into a digital image. CCD is a grid of light-sensitive points which capture the image for conversion into a digital image. The number of points on the CCD is measured in terms of “megapixels.”

The number of megapixel count alone is irrelevant when we talk about the picture clarity. A high pixel rating on a small camera is a pretty bad sign. Like pixels, many specifications you will see advertised on the camera box that will not indicate the image clarity, and, ultimately you’ll not be able to find if the camera you are purchasing can take beautiful pictures or not.

Sensor-

A camera’s sensor is basically its film. When you take a photo the sensor is exposed to light and the other components of the camera capture the image of what it sees. There are many types of sensors and it becomes wasteful to explain each one of them. Here we will be talking about few proficient sensors organized by size, from small to large-

• Cellphone and Point-and-Shoot Sensor- These tiny size sensors pack a lot of information in them and thus degrade the image quality. However, they can brighten up the dark areas and try to pull details out of overly-lit sections of an image.
• Micro 4/3rds Sensors- They were created to bridge the gap between big digital SLRs and point-and-shoot cameras. These cameras have a larger sensor size and come with the provision of interchangeable lenses. Thus, they provide higher-quality images.
• APS-C Sensors- These sensors are commonly found in digital SLRs but are sometimes found in compact cameras also such as in Sony Nex Series. Due to the larger size, these cameras do not suffer from the problem of capturing a lot of light. A standard APS-C sensor features a “crop factor” of 1.6x for Canon and 1.5x for Pentax, Sony and Nikon. This means that 18-55 mm kit lens that is bundled with most digital SLRs covers a 35mm field of view equivalent to 27-82.5 mm. Also, we can render an out-of- focus background behind our subject.
• Full-Frame Sensors- These are commonly found on high-end digital SLR cameras like that in Canon 5D series. These are larger sensors than that of APS-C sensors and have greater potential to capture more light and thus can handle low-light situations better than any other sensors.

Image processors-

The image processor of the camera also affects the picture quality. A camera with a good image processor is capable of fixing lighting issues and many such operations. It also enables a camera to capture images in quick successions. With a fast image processor, one can directly figure out the difference between a good shot and a great shot.

These are all the technical factors which play their game but the best judge of how the camera performs in terms image quality is going to be our own eye. If it meets our need, it’s good enough.

At Crosswords, you will find an ample range of highly digitalized cameras of the most prestigious brands like Sony, Canon, Nikon, Pentax, Sigma, etc that will equally complement your budget.