NWA-PCUG Newsletter Article, September 2002
Buying Digital Cameras
by Lee Holt, Colliers Drug, Fayetteville, AR
jerrico49@hotmail.com
(click to email author)


First I wanted to thank the NWA-PC User Group for having me come and speak with them. I had a really good time and the members present asked a lot of good questions.

I have been asked to recap what we discussed at the meeting so here goes.

The first thing you need to think about is, what you want a digital camera for. Do you just want to e-mail photos or do you want to be able to print and manipulate your photos? E-mailing photos requires smaller images so it's not important to have a real hi-resolution camera. If you want to print your images you need to consider looking at a camera with enough resolution to print the Largest picture you might want to have printed. (8x10 or larger you probably need a minimum or 3.1MP) You can come to Colliers and look at sample prints from the different digital cameras and see the difference in quality for yourself. Or, if you bring along a 100MB Zip disk or a CD-R, you can then take some pictures yourself and take the images home with you as a free trial. The next thing you should consider is features. There are a lot of different features that the cameras have so you should either read up on the ones you are looking at or talk to a sales person about them. Here is a list of the things that I find important:

  • Does the camera support uncompressed or RAW file formats?
  • How long does it take for the camera to transfer the image to the memory card?
  • Does the camera have the ability to make MPEG movies and if so how long can they be?
  • What Kind of memory media will the camera support and what is the largest size it can take?
  • What size memory card does the company provide with the camera?
  • What is the Optical zoom range of the camera?
  • What is the minimum focus distance of the camera?
  • What kind of software does the camera come with?
  • What accessories are available for the camera?
  • What kind of support history does the Camera Company have?

Finally, once you have made a decision on which camera you want there are a few last items to think about. All digital cameras eat batteries so it is important to look at buying extra batteries ,and if the camera does not come with rechargeable batteries then you should look into getting some. Most people will also need an additional memory card as well because the card you are given is usually the minimum you will need. Digital cameras come with the ability to download images directly from the camera to the computer but it’s slow and eats up battery power. However there are memory card reader/writers that hook up to a USB port and will allow you to move files from the card to the computer and the transfer time is better than what the cameras can achieve. Finally, if you don’t have a camera bag for your camera I highly recommend that you invest in one. A bag is much cheaper than repairing your camera or buying a new one.

Thanks again for having me speak to your club and if anyone has any other questions please feel free to contact me here at colliers or via my e-mail.

    Lee Holt
    442-6264
    jerrico49@hotmail.com

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