When buying an exspensive digital camera like a canon or Nikon, What qualities should i look for? Nikon makes terrific DSLRs, but their compact digicams are really nothing special.
When you say "expensive"- I"m not sure what your price range is. If you are looking for a DSLR, and you're not sure what qualities to look at, then perhaps you shouldn't look at a DSLR. They're heavy, bulky and expensive, and a good compact digicam can rival their image quality in most situations.
For a good compact digicam- what to look for:
1. Pixels. 6-8Mpix is very good. Anything higher than that is generally a waste of money. Image quality doesn't improve and the files are bigger than you need them to be for even a very nice 11x17 print.
2. Size. The smaller the camera, the more likely you'll have it with you.
3. zoom range: look at the wide end as well as the long end. I personally would take a 7x zoom that goes from 28-200mm rather than a 12x zoom that goes from 37-432mm- because I like wide angle (YMMV).
4. Responsiveness. Does it start up quickly and autofocus quickly This is a biggie in my book and cameras vary considerably, even from top notch companies like Nikon. For instance their flagship compact camera, the P5000 has painfully slow autofocus times.
5. Image quality. Most are pretty good these day. Read the reviews though.
6. high ISO performance and noise. Just because a camera says it goes to ISO3200, doesn't mean that the photos are any good at that speed. The Fuji F-series is unique in this field as the only line that does well at ISO400 and 800.
7. Think about how you'll be using it. What features will be important to you? an optical viewfinder? a big LCD? a good movie mode? a manual zoom (like, let's say the Fuji S6000). A good rapid fire continuous mode?
8. Will you be always taking pics on full auto? Or do you want to play with the settings. If so, get a camera that has a sufficient number of buttons to access the things you'll use most often, without wading through menus. White balance, exposure compensation and ISO are my big three. you wouldnt want a camera with 1 or 2 megapixels. i have a nikon coolpix L4 and its really cool. u dont need like 10 megapixels. the nikon coolpix L4 is like 4 megapixels but the pics dont come out bad. its easy to use and it was like $130.00
i want to get the canon powershot sd750. its 250.00 at walmart.com and it looks really cool. i guess nikon or canon are good brands. hope that helps :) my suggestion
go to yahoo shopping
digital cameras
digital camera GUIDE
be sure to check titles on the left side
the guide should answer your questions Instead of looking at "'buying' an expensive digital camera," perhaps you should rephrase an alternative route: "'rent' an expensive camera" since you sound like an aspiring photographer who is very much aware of changing technologies, with so many new features found on Canons and Nikons which are ever being updated and of course, the price of older technology is constantly dropping.
You can right now have access to the best of the best by taking a trip to your local professional camera store and look into "renting" the "very best" and try it out for a day to see if that's what you really want to settle for when you "buy" it. This "rent" to-test strategy will satisfy all curiosity on what camera(s) exactly fit your needs and budget.
In the meantime, getting back to the original question regarding "what qualities should you look for," perhaps you want to throw in another quality called "affordability." Neither Canon or Nikon offers much in the way of an affordable DSLR. Did you consider the Pentax K100D or K10D series which offers the best affordable professional camera outfit with the most moder features. Currently a complete starter kit for a K100D 6.1 megapixel DSLR with a normal 18-55 mm. lense and a 75-200 mm. telephoto sells for $650 at samys.com. Remember that the Pentax camera body has the best built-in "image stabilization" device bar none. Should you add auxiliary telephoto lenses - you won't need to drag along a tripod.
Good luck! |
