Three Main Types of Digital Cameras

Digital is the Way to Go!

Digital photos can be placed into emails, put into word processing documents, and put on Websites for the whole world to see.  They can be stored on your computer so when you need to edit them and use them in a different way, you can do it with ease and it won't cost you a dime, just a little time.

Some hard-core fans of film say that film cameras produce quality and depth that cannot be captured by digital, but many photographers consider new high-end digital SLRs to have equal, if not better, quality compared to most 35-millimeter film cameras.

Some Reasons Digital Photography has Become so Popular

• You don't have to spend money buying film and paying for the developing.
• You don't waste your time delivering and picking up your photos from the processor.  
• Digital cameras allow you to see how your picture will look, both before and immediately after you take it.
• You can easily edit your images in one of the many photo editing programs and make them look better, perform unique transformations on them, save them and delete them.
• Digital photography is environmentally friendly since it doesn't use the chemicals needed to process film photographs.
• If you are a frugal person, with digital pictures you won't have to wait to finish taking that roll of film before you have it developed.  You can take a few pictures, load them onto your computer, go take some more, and the first pictures you took can stay right in your camera's memory.
• No more hesitating before you take a picture because you are concerned about the cost of the film and developing.

Another plus for digital cameras is that some of them can even capture sound and video, in addition to taking still pictures.

Three Main Types of Digital Cameras

The consumer "point and shoot" cameras are at the low end of the digital camera spectrum.  They all have resolutions of 2 to 5 million pixels (Megapixels or MP) and are priced between $150 and $500. 

They are the biggest selling and the least expensive digital cameras. These cameras are fully automatic and usually don't give you much creative control, which is why they are called "point and shoot".  With resolutions of 2 or 4 million pixels, you can get very good prints for standard 4" x 6" photos.

For viewing photos on the web, they will be displayed at approximately 72 dpi, so to show an 8" x 10" photo on the web at 72 dpi, you would only need a camera that has a 0.5 mega pixel resolution.  You can see that a low end consumer model will work just fine for web pictures.

According to Consumer Reports, the most reliable brands are Sony, Panasonic, Kodak, Olympus and Canon.

2.  Mid-Range Digital Cameras
(Picture: Nikon D40 - 6.1 megapixels, - $700)

At the next level are the mid-range cameras which have resolutions of 5 to 8 million pixels.  They cost between $500 and $1000 and give you a lot of creative control.

Generally, with the higher resolutions you get more features like through-the-lens (TTL) focusing. This is one of the fastest growing categories of cameras.   They appeal to serious photographers who like to have the creative control of their camera's settings.  With 6 mega pixels you can make good prints up to 8" x 10".

3.  Professional Digital Cameras
(Picture: Nikon D2Xs  - 12.4 Megapixel - $4000.00)

At the top level are the professional cameras costing above $1000 and may go up to $8000.  They appeal to both amateur and professional photographers.

These cameras have resolutions of 6 to 15 mega pixels.  These cameras have the highest resolution, the most features, and are the highest priced.  Often, their design version is based on the long standing 35mm single lens reflex (SLR) design. Many of them allow you to switch the lenses between the digital and film based models.

In the next section Digital Camera Features, I'll talk about the things you should know before you buy a digital camera.