Digital camera

The first step is to understand what a digital camera is. With a film camera, collecting light from a particular scene or subject and focusing on film, which reacts chemically when struck by light and is said to “capture” the image, forms an image. What makes a camera “digital” is that, instead of film, it has an image sensor that reacts to light by sending out electrical signals. The camera takes the information from the image sensor and processes and stores it as a collection of pixels in a digital file, usually on a memory card inside the camera. Although the actual process is more complex than this, in essence this is how a digital photo image is made. It’s essentially made up of thousands and thousands of tiny dots, or pixels. When you collect a million pixels, you have a megapixel. The number of megapixels tells you how many pixels the image file has. A camera that captures 8 million pixels, for example, is called an 8-megapixel camera. The number of megapixels a camera features can also help to determine the size photos you can print or the amount of cropping you can do. For example, a 4-megapixel camera may be enough for snapshots, but if you want to print poster-size images or crop heavily, 8 megapixels (or greater) is more suitable. A 6-megapixel camera might be all you’ll need because higher resolution doesn’t necessarily produce better prints. Lenses and other factors affect quality too. But most cameras today have at least 10-megapixel sensors. The size of the sensor, and the size of each individual image sensor element, which corresponds to pixels, can affect photo quality. But remember, the number of megapixels alone doesn’t determine the quality of a digital camera’s images. For many, price is a major factor when buying a camera. In general, look to pay the following for the type of camera you’re looking to buy: For point-and-shoots (subcompacts, compacts, and super zooms), expect to spend $100 to $500. For basic SLRs, expect to spend $450 to $1,500. For advanced SLRs, expect to spend $900 to $2,000. When you’re ready to buy, consider where you will make your purchase. Although some walk-in stores, such as photo-specialty camera shops, might have knowledgeable salespeople, you can’t rely entirely on the staff of walk-in stores to assist you in your purchase. Use the Internet and our Ratings for information before buying. Also, if you decide to purchase at a traditional retail store, forgo the extended warranty because digital cameras have been among the most reliable products in our surveys. These are all my personal experiment and took lot of time for research and finally buy the camera that I wanted but I think it worth it, now I have a wonderful canon which basically I am living with it.