How to Buy a Digital Camera
I’ve recently been considering purchasing a new digital SLR camera. With so many choices out there, how does one end up making a decision? Here are some resources that I have been using.
Camera review sites like DPReview and MegaPixel offer great unbiased reviews and have excellent and very active forums where people who own cameras share their experiences.
I have talked to a few friends who own DSLR’s to find out what they like about their cameras, and more importantly to find out how they made their decisions.
Flickr captures meta data from almost every image uploaded to their photo sharing site. Their Camera Finder tool is useful in that it uses the “wisdom of crowds” to show you what cameras are most popular with photographers. It also lets you see the quality of images that are captured with a certain make of camera (although be careful - the image could have been retouched with Photoshop).
In the end, I am still waffling but will hopefully make up my mind by month’s end!
I love DPReview, but my only complaint is that they don’t lower the scores enough for cameras that take pictures slowly. One thing I really believe is that point-n-shoot cameras (which most people buy) should be very fast so that you don’t loose the picture you’re trying to take (was a problem with a Nikon we borrowed years ago). For example, our first digital camera was a Canon Powershot S30 and was really quite fast at taking pictures. We replaced it with the A95 (I think) which is noticably slower and a friend mentioned that its replacement is slower still, yet these still get very high scores.
I would not put much weight on comparing images to camera make. Your previous post on ‘Ten most …’ is way more important than the actual camera. Try to give some thought to what type of pictures you will want to take. If you want to do low light photography without flash then a camera with good performance at high ISO would be a good choice. Do you always want to carry the camera - if so then weight and size are important. Since you are looking at slr camera it is assumed that you will be buying additional lenes. Between the offerings from Tamron and Sigma and the manufactures own lenses you will a good choice no matter which camera you get. But again if you have a specific need that if best met with a particular lens then that might be the camera to choose. For example Pentax makes a very thin set of lenses that many find useful when photographing people - camera is less obtrusive and does not seem as threatening. If you basically just want a better point and shoot camera then most any of the models will work.
Get a Fuji or a Pentax :)
[...] - How to Buy a Digital Camera I vote for Canon Rebel [...]
I think asking professional photographers can also help you come up with your decision. Some photographers like Canon but most like Nikon. The quality and kinds of lenses are also good to take into consideration. I also have related articles in my website. I hope you can come and visit :)
Great work on this entry and good luck on your search for that perfect cam! :)
Austin
http://www.whatdigitalcamera.info/