So you want to buy a digital camera? But what do you look for? How do you sift through the numerous brands and models to find the one that is best for you? Note the term "best for you", as there really isn't an absolutely perfect camera to buy. Your task is to find the camera that will fill your needs as best as possible. Buy it and live with it.
In this article we explore a number of areas that you should give a lot of thought to while making your decision. Some of them are going to be very important to you and others will be insignificant. Still others may seem to be remote at this time because by not working with digital cameras you may not realize their importance.
The bottom line is always money. How much are you willing to invest (polite term for "throw away"?) on jumping into this technology with this purchase? The budget shouldn't be a starting figure but actually the result of compromise and balance between all the other factors when measured against your starting objectives. It goes like this: what do you want to do, what does this mean in terms of camera features, and what will I have to pay for various levels of potential achievement? Then pick the financial compromise that you deem best. Only you can make that decision.
Some solutions are to buy a very expensive camera with the hopes of turning a profit. This may be practical if you are a professional photographer and would like to convert to digital. You know you're not going to do it with a "toy". Another tactic is to buy as many features as you can for your money. Weigh the pros and cons of each model and pick out the best value; which is actually the camera that offers the best compromise for your needs but the best match for your objectives. Still another is to buy dirt cheap; experiment, learn, throw it away (not losing much!) and buy what you really need. A dirt cheap, used or even last year's model may not be to most attractive digital technology in features compared to the newest models, but it may allow you to get your feet wet and do some real experimenting with a minimum of investment. With this approach you will learn one very important lesson: how well do you like digital photography and do you really want to be a digital photographer? Only practical experience will answer this and if the answer is no, wouldn't it be better not to have an expensive relic hanging around as a reminder? Don't think about the left over camera as much as the monthly payments that may linger long after the thrill of digital photography has left!
Whatever your approach, you should give this process a lot of thought. Here to help you is a list of major areas and some ideas about what they may mean to your decision making process. Except for the first topic, your objectives, they are not in any particular order so don't take the presentation as a priority list!
Your objectives
Always start by analyzing your objectives. What is it you are trying to accomplish by dashing out and buying a digital camera? It is very important to understand your objectives clearly because whatever camera you buy, it's going to have to allow you to meet your objectives. But notice the term ":objectives", as plural. The process would be very easy if you only have one stated and clear objective. For example, if you need to take photographs of cars you are selling so you can e-mail the pictures to customers, then all you have to do is find a camera that will do the job for you.
But for many of us, we may wish to satisfy several objectives. You may need the occasional e-mail picture, but you may also want some to be printed on an inkjet or dye-sub printer. As well, you may need (or want) a powerful flash for those family gatherings and a nice wide angle lens for those vacation panoramas. And don't forget that nice zoom lens to get just the composition you want.
Other objectives include the mere experience of digital photography. Learning about this exciting field is, for many, perfectly valid justification enough. Being able to add digital photographer to one's resume is valid. Having a digital photography setup is also important for some just in case a need arises to take a picture for whatever purpose as will be determined only at that time. Being able to supplement the business services you offer with digital photography may help expand your business and, of course, profits.
Word process a list of your objectives, everything that you can possibly imaging using a digital camera for. Then shuffle the items into priority from highest to lowest. Just because there are some important items on the top, don't disregard the items on the bottom. Lower items may help you make the final selection between cameras that serve your highest priorities equally.
Quite a list, no? Keep it handy as you read the rest of this article and especially as you conduct your research and prepare to buy.
Resolution
Let's start with that all important yet somewhat overrated measure of digital cameras: resolution. Consider, for example, a digital camera with a resolution of 1 x 1! There is only one pixel (any of 16.77 million different colors) which presents absolutely no image. You need pixels to convey image; lots of them. 640 x 480 is decent for web graphics because that will both fill your screen (although many people are surfing with 800 x 600 this leaves space around the image for your scroll bars and other stuff). So if your objective is to produce web graphics, 640 x 480 will do. Any more and you will have to either crop some excess image making it smaller or interpolate (resize) to a smaller resolution, In either case you are going to throw away resolution! So if you spent a lot of extra dollars to get the latest multi-mega-pixel camera you'd realize that you're in overkill area! But consider further two additional points. First, by having that multi-mega-pixel resolution available you can crop to just about any small part of your picture and still have enough resolution. With a 640 x 480 camera you may not be able to do much cropping before you find yourself with too little resolution. By the way, interpolating lower resolution images into higher resolutions will work mathematically but the results will be a much fuzzier image. Not recommended except as a last resort under emergency situations so don't think you'll be able to use it as an everyday tool.
For print there is the old 2:1 ratio to calculate. This means that the resolution of your image must be twice the resolution of the halftone you intend to use. Well, digital cameras are not rated in pixels per inch but merely in pixels. So you have to do some math to figure out what you need for input images from a digital camera.
Start by determining the size of the printed image in inches. Then determine the resolution of the halftone screen the printers will use. The number of pixels you need are twice the screen ruling to produce one inch of picture. For example, if you want a 1" square image printed at 100 lines per inch, you need an image that is 200 x 200 pixels. Just about every digital camera will do the trick but, on the other hand, who needs a 1" square picture? Now if you want that picture to be 2" square, we now need 400 x 400 pixels. A reasonably sized halftone of 4" wide by 5" high will require 800 x 1000 pixels. Still within range of a lot of cameras, but 100 lines per inch is a low printing resolution, in about the newspaper quality class. For commercial printing you might prefer 150 line. This now means each square inch requires 300 x 300 pixels. Our 4" x 5" should now contain at least 1200 x 1500 pixels! But 4" x 5" is also very small for a nice printed picture. How about filling up the page with an 8" x 10" 150 line beauty? This now needs 2400 x 3000 pixels! If your objectives are photos for print, give this consideration an awful lot of thought.
If possible, buy a bit more resolution than you need. It is possible to reduce the size of your graphic by cropping (best choice) or even interpolation (works but your image will be a bit fuzzy). Over time your needs may change raising the resolution requirements of your camera. This is too bad because your solution will be to buy a new higher resolution one! Starting with a higher resolution camera now will give you some room to grow and experiment doing newer and different things with your camera. But more resolution costs more money but check numbers very carefully. Also check your objectives. Do you think you might do other things with this camera at some time in the future? Be honest and be thorough.
Our next consideration is the relationship between resolution and digital film. Higher resolution images are larger requiring more storage (digital film) until you get to transferring them to your computer. This is no issue if you really need the highest resolutions but it can produce a different problem if you are intentionally using a higher resolution and will eventually reduce the resolution on computer. The cost of an ample supply of digital film would only be adding insult to the injury of the higher-priced higher-resolution camera!
So what's the answer? Pay very close attention to the "other" resolutions a camera offer besides the highly publicized maximum. It may be that a particular high resolution camera of about the 1600 x 1200 class may allow for 1024 x 768 or even 640 x 480. For those times where you don't want or need high resolution, you will be able to pack more lower resolution images on your digital film. Learn how to change resolutions on the fly so that you can mix the resolutions on your digital film. Look at it as matching the resolution with the picture. If it's going to be cropped, use high resolution. If it's just a quick nice picture you're taking just for fun, use low resolution.
Although resolution is very important, there are other factors you should keep in mind. When you sift through magazines and catalogs you may find them hard to identify. But look for them if you think they are a critical part of your ideal digital photography system.
Power supply: batteries
Digital cameras are actually special purpose computers and that means they require electricity to operate. Further complicating the problem, they must be portable so that you can take them anyplace. If that isn't enough, they also have to provide a flash system and that uses a lot of battery power. So you can assume every digital camera must have a power supply. Check it out carefully because it could make a big difference in the how conveniently or inexpensively you can operate the camera.
Some cameras, such as the Sony FD91, are designed for special batteries available only, of course, from Sony. Because of the high consumption of electricity, it is not advisable to buy a camera that uses special expensive disposable batteries. Any such batteries should be rechargeable. One thing you're going to have to get used to is that batteries will not last anywhere as long as you think they should! Or, it's amazing how quickly they will run down leaving you with a camera that won't even turn on.
Other cameras use standard AA batteries and that can be a real convenience. But there are special types of AA batteries that have higher capacity other than the off-the-shelf versions. Also, AA batteries that can be recharged are a convenience. These batteries are very expensive to buy but they will last a long time. The last advantage of AA batteries is that in an emergency, they can be purchased just about anyplace.
Don't forget that you also need to buy a battery recharger. Look and see if one is supplied free with your camera (as was with the Sony FD91). Otherwise, this cost may offset what on the surface appears as a very low cost camera. How long will it take to recharge a set of batteries? Is it possible to "top off" the charge for those few minutes when you are near an electrical outlet without ruining the battery?
Batteries bring many problems to a digital camera system. You have to buy them, recharge them, replace them and, of course, manage a small collection of them while in the field taking pictures. Just remember that if the battery problem gets out of hand, your camera simply shuts itself off and that is the end of your photography session.
What about AC adapters? If you plan to take pictures while you are close to electrical outlets, than consider this as a possible solution to the battery problem. On the other hand, if you're going to be moving around a lot, an AC adapter may not be that useful and you may be forced to pay for something you're not going to use very much. If you fall in between these two extremes, give AC adapters some consideration. But be careful, if you have to buy a separate AC adapter, be sure and add this cost to the camera system for sake of comparison. Some cheap cameras can get to be very expensive if you buy them piece by piece!
Decide on what kind of battery system you think you can live with. Rechargables? Disposables? Special batteries? For each camera you are considering buying, check out the power system. Unfortunately, you many not find the answers you need, for example how long the battery will last before it has to be replaced or recharged or how long it takes to recharge. One final consideration: you are using battery power to review your exposures. Cameras with large LCD screens will run out of power quicker than those with old fashioned glass viewfinders.
Digital film
One of the greatest reasons for buying a digital camera is that you no longer have to buy film. Well, this is almost true. Digital film is the storage medium for your images in the same was as chemical film was in the old days. The advantage with digital film is that it is reusable. Once you transfer the image to the computer you can erase the digital film and use it again and again and again. But you do have to invest in enough digital film to take all the pictures you want to before returning to your computer. Of course, you can take a computer with you and this is really not that bad an idea although it does create its own set of logistical problems.
How much digital film is enough? First, what is the resolution you plan to use? The higher the resolution the more you will need. Second, how many pictures do you plan to take on a single outing? The more you plan to shoot the more storage you need. What you will have to determine is a factor how many pictures can stored on a specific amount of memory such as 8 MB. Say, for example, you can store 10 pictures on 8 MB. Now, if you go on a day trip you might like to take 50 pictures. Doing the simple math, you realize you need 40 MB of digital film. If, for hypothetical example, a different camera with a slightly lower resolution and greater compression will store 25 pictures on 8 MB, you only need 16 MB to store a day's worth of pictures. Do lots of these calculations and get an idea of how much digital film you'd like to pay for.
Now look at the other part of the formula. How many pictures do you really want to take? One thing to realize about digital photography over the old traditional chemical version is that many people will take more pictures digitally because it really doesn't cost anything to take a digital picture. With chemical film you had to face two costs before taking a picture, buying the film and processing it. Ever remember a time when you considered the value of the film before making an exposure? Was the picture really worth it? Was it really going to come out perfect? All that is gone with the cheap cost of exposure and especially the computer where you can easily fix a not-that-perfect image. You are definitely going to take more digital pictures!
Of course these calculations would be easy if it wasn't for one thing. The size of your compressed and stored images is not a constant. Each picture will, or could, compress to a different size. Therefore, it is not possible to accurately predict how much digital film you will need; you can only get a rough idea. For example, sunsets compress to almost nothing while foliage pictures are much larger.
The more popular types of digital film are CompactFlash and SmartaMedia. They're somewhat standardized and readily available. Be careful about proprietary storage media because you may get stuck without a source of digital film if the camera is discontinued and the manufacturer doesn't stock them any more. Also, being a nonstandard item it may be higher priced per megabyte. For example, in a recent Global catalog, a digital camera of 640 x480 resolution was offered for $119.00. Very nice, but the digital film is listed at $59.95 for 4 MB! By contrast, you get 16 MB of Compact Flash for the same price!
Size is another consideration. Do you want just one large card of about 64 to 128 MB to hold all your pictures? In this way it stays in the camera and never gets lost (unless the camera goes with it!). Having a bunch of cards can be a problem because they are small, about the size of a matchbook, and if it goes, you may have to spend up to $400 to replace it! You're obviously going to have to invent yourself a media management system to keep track of them and, especially, not lose any. It's all part of the system.
The older low-end Sony digital cameras (such as our FD91) use floppy disks. This makes the cost of digital film quite inexpensive but a challenge in the field. One battery charge can fill 15 disks at high resolution. From practical use the system works, but a 16 MB SmartMedia card would be much more convenient. At $49.95 its also much more expensive.
What can go wrong with digital film besides the obvious one of losing them? At this point we really haven't heard about any problems. Could there be the possibility of burning them out with static charges? Can they be physically damaged? Could the card be corrupted where some pictures may lose data? Again, all is unknown. In theory, the cards could last indefinitely and if so, that is definitely in their advantage.
The last bit of news is that some of the newest cameras will accept more than one type of storage. In this way you may be able to use your old film in your new camera, buy whatever happens to be cheapest, or even trade or borrow film from friends as necessary (and agreeable, of course!). This system gives you the greatest amount of flexibility with digital film.
Be sure and calculate the cost of digital film when deciding on your camera. It may not be evident when you purchase the camera but it will show up eventually. In our case, we went quite awhile with old reformatted floppies before investing heavily in a pack of 50 disks for $3.95 (after a nice rebate). Every once in awhile a disk gets corrupted and is promptly thrown away. The down side is that the disk will hold between 4 and 12 images each and carrying them around is a part of the chore. It is, however, a demonstration of the digital film problem that we all have to face one way or another.
Connectivity
Connecting your camera to your computer to transfer your pictures is a real serious problem. Or for that matter, think of how you plan to get your images off your digital film or out of the camera. Digital cameras should be considered part of an overall digital imaging system that includes your computer and other systems for viewing your images. Your computer is your gateway to the world wide web, so how do you get the pictures to the computer so that they can go onto the web?
There are numerous systems and some out-and-out schemes for doing this. The first thing to realize is that the computer was first. The digital camera must be designed to interact with established computer protocol for purposes of transferring files between the two devices. Now this is the real problem. Computers (PCs or Macs) were not designed to transfer lots of large image files, literally many megabytes of them. In the old days, files were generally text files, data files filled with numbers or letters. But graphics files have always presented problems because they were so large and always took a long time to transfer.
Anyone armed with a digital camera is bound to create (with the push of a button) many large graphic files. What is amazing is how fast the cameras can process the images and save them onto their tiny little cards. With this false sense of speed it becomes difficult to comprehend why there is even a problem transferring these files in the first place.
Serial interface is very old, the original method of transferring data between computers. Yet almost all computers are, or can be set up to handle serial transfer. Most simply by plugging in wires. But serial is very slow and here is a new problem; transfer time. Sometimes it can be a real tedious and time consuming chore, especially if you have a lot of pictures. But this is all part of your digital photography system and you have to live with it.
Each camera provides some sort of way to transfer images into your computer. Study the specifications carefully and decide if the system is practical for your computer. For example, the Kodak cameras will use either serial, USB or both. If your computer doesn't support the newer and faster USB, you may have to purchase a special interface just to use for your camera.
The low resolution Sony digital cameras use floppy disks and that is very practical. After all, the images aren't very big being compressed and low resolution. But the newer Sony cameras with higher resolutions are entirely different. They, like other manufacturers, are now faced with the connectivity problem and the floppy is not a practical solution for higher resolutions.
There are many solutions to the connectivity problem being offered by various manufacturers. It is a serious problem and no doubt the expertise of companies should be called into play to help us solve it. Study them carefully and make sure they will work both with your computer and the camera you plan to buy. Another consideration is to try and find out just how much time you are going to save by using this device. Is it worth it? Will it take a 30 minute chore and reduce it to only 25 minutes? Is that worth it? Or will it reduce it to about 5 minutes? If you're a busy professional who makes money in the field shooting pictures, not sitting idly watching progress bars on a computer screen just about anything is worth the money. But if you're a hobbyist with far more time than money, accept connectivity as the weak link in your system and live with it. And then there's the cost. Are you just buying into another hardware system that will require its own investment?
The connectivity problem is one of those things that sneak up on you shortly after you start using your brand new camera. You really shouldn't agonize over which system to pick because you really don't have much choice. They're all going to take time. Before you dismiss a camera because it won't connect directly to your computer, look into the cost upgrading your computer to a newer and faster interface. It may be worth it if you use the interface for other computer systems as well. Don't kid yourself; add the cost of the interface to the overall cost of your digital camera system!
Lens
Every camera has to have a lens, the main imaging system for your camera. The CCD? No, that just records what falls on the chip and can be considered the modern equivalent of film. If it is a fuzzy or otherwise poor image, the CCD sensor can do nothing about it. Of course, you could have a camera that shines a wonderful image onto a poor CCD but that is a different problem.
Zoom lens were very nice with the old chemical film cameras, but they may be more of a necessity with digital cameras. Resolution is limited to only a few pixels and you can't enlarge images like we used to during photofinishing. Want a 5" x 7" enlargement? No problem, just enlarge the image off the original negative. Not so with digital because you may end up looking at pixels instead of image. Just as you couldn't enlarge 35MM too much before you started seeing grain, we now find that we cannot enlarge hardly at all before seeing pixels. Besides, we don't enlarge pixels, we interpolate to a higher resolution. This process will (not maybe) blur your image slightly.
Zoom lenses allow you to carefully select which parts of your scene to pack into your camera's resolution. If what you want a picture of is off in the distance, it may actually occupy only 50 x 100 pixels of a fixed lens picture. Zooming in would allow that same scene to fill, maybe, 300 x 500 pixels. That's the value of your zoom lens. Looking at it another way, a scene that would otherwise fill 1024 x 768 pixels can be sort of optically divided into four separate pieces. Zoom in on each quarter and expose it at 1024 x 768. The result of four exposures could be an overall image of 2048 x 1536. Photo stitching software could be very handy!
Of course there is the old fashioned reasons for zoom lens and they should not be overlooked. Zoom lenses are good and worth some extra money. They will expand your picture composition possibilities.
Digital zoom is something different. Be sure and find out exactly what it is before you go believing that a camera has 6X zoom when it actually has only 2X optical zoom and 3X digital zoom. One method of digital zoom may be to restrict the image to only those 640 x 480 pixels in the center of the CCD. In effect, you are zooming in, no? Another possibility is the use of interpolation of a smaller area of the CCD into a larger resolution. If this be the case, consider buying another camera! Is digital zoom worth it? Until more is known about the system and how the zooming is taking place, be careful and ask questions about the process specific to the camera you are intending to buy. Whatever answer you get, the wrong answer would be to assume optical and digital zooms are the same. They are not. Be very, very suspicious.
The Sony FD91 has a 14X zoom lens, probably a lens design borrowed from one of Sony's camcorders. From our experience the zoom seems to be everything Sony promises. But it is hard to tell. After all, we don't have a high resolution 35MM negative to study under a microscope, only a bunch of pixels. Since digital images contain a lot less image detail than 35MM, why not give up the optical clarity you would otherwise need with film if you aren't getting the resolution? The loss of image with these kinds of lenses may not show up at all. But if the highest possible image is your objective, other cameras with better lens systems and higher resolution may be your answer. Our objective was long zoom but that is merely a personal preference.
So how much is a zoom lens worth? Only you can answer the question. It is going to add literally hundreds to the cost of the camera. But once you've bought, it won't be possible to add one later. This is just one of those decisions you're going to have to make now and live with it. But be careful, for if you cheap out, you may be disappointed forever.
User control
Carefully study the controls, settings and adjustments on the cameras you are considering. Avoid the cameras where all you can do is point and shoot. Each camera gives you different types of controls and, most important, differing amounts of control. Some may want to keep their camera as close to a simple consumer model as they can while others want to give as many of the controls professionals need for the greatest picture control.
There is a tradeoff. First, fewer controls means the camera is easy to use. But using it will not allow you to make adjustments for the infinitely variable conditions you will encounter in the field. On the other extreme are the cameras with so many adjustments, controls, settings and strange but intriguing features that it will require a lot of time just to study the owner's manual and discover everything. Working in the field is more complex because more settings will have to be checked and set before a picture can be taken. Some people enjoy the challenge of controlling a complicated device while others simply want to take pictures.
It depends on your objectives and which system allows you to achieve them. Your camera choice may be someplace between the two extremes. You have to decide whether your photography needs these adjustments and that will help you decide on which camera is best for you. You have to carefully study and decide which settings are best for you before you purchase. There are many features that may not be all that useful. Such rarely used features may be forgotten when there exists a need to use them.
Since digital cameras are actually computers, there will usually be computerized exposure control as well. In the old days we had controls (most important f-stop and exposure time) to control the exposure. Digital cameras work slightly differently. A certain quantity of light strikes the CCD and the camera's computer must translate that into an image. How it does this is quite complicated but rest assured, computer control is absolutely required. Now this computer control is actually computerized exposure control for which you may influence as you set your camera. But can you?
The Sony FD91 offers computerized exposure control but it is not possible to turn it off and work visually. It is even difficult to override the computer determined exposure settings for those rare times when you know you need something different. A lot of work has been put into learning how to adjust the camera to get the desired results. How much? The same amount of time and effort as it took to learn how to control an old chemical film camera many years ago. You see, things are just different today but the challenge is the same.
It is best to go to a store and play with the cameras. Discover which settings they have available. Try and look at the instruction manual that describes the settings and adjustments on the camera. Look for buttons and dials. In short, get a feel for what the camera offers. Ease of use? Sorry, only if you can borrow the camera for a day or two will you be able to evaluate the usability of the camera. Some stores will be nice enough to put batteries in the camera so that you can actually try them out. Others only show you a "dead" sample and all you can do is wonder over the significance of tiny buttons scattered all over the place.
In all, what the controls mean to your picture taking ability is largely hidden. We only have the promise indicated by the presence of buttons and listings in the owner's manual. Your basic choice is for either a camera that is simple with few controls or a complex system that may give you the control you need. Your stand on this issue should be carefully considered.
Accessories
Let's define accessories as devices (including software) that allow you to expand the capabilities of your digital photography system. This separates items that are, for profit purposes, excluded from the original package that are probably necessary such as a battery charger. Many accessories are the traditional photographer's devices such as a tripod. Would you buy a digital camera if you couldn't attach it to a tripod? Another is the ability to attach a stand-alone flash. It would be nice if the camera gave you a plug to attach your flash (probably the one you already own and have been using with your old 35MM film camera. If not, are you prepared to deal with the challenge of rigging up a slave flash? Of course there is the big question: do you really need more flash more than what the basic camera provides?
Lens accessories may be important. Is it possible to screw in a telephoto or wide angle attachment? Filters? Interchangeable lenses would be a nice feature and it is probably only a matter of time before they begin to appear as standard features for certain camera brands. For mow there are many lens modifiers available from companies such as Tiffin.
Beware of cameras where accessories are required. Accessories should be just that; things that if you want you could add onto your camera system where your system will work quite fine without them if you really don't want them. Digital film and batteries should hot be considered accessories but supplies and consumables. Accessories are your own choice. At what point do we consider items on a list of camera features as being nothing more than accessories that you may not want?
But what do you do if the accessories you want aren't available? First, you could search around and see if third party devices or solutions are available. There are many such devices such as lens enhancements, tripods, and flashes available at your local photography store. An online search will also reveal the availability of products such as telescope adapters or underwater housings. Many companies are hard to find because they have small markets and cannot afford national advertising exposure. Another possibility is to search through the chat rooms and bulletin boards or even post your own message in the hopes that others have gone the same route and have found something interesting.
Maybe the accessories issue is not important to you. This is one area where you may skip if the pictures you plan to take only require the basic camera system. But if you want to do underwater photography you may have to first find the underwater housing and then pick from the list of supported cameras that will fit inside.
The final advice about accessories is to think ahead in the future for what you may want to do after you've saturated the novelty of just getting the digital camera system to work. If you have an interest in underwater photography, for example, it's only going to be a matter of time before buying a housing becomes a serious issue! Consider it now (you don't have to buy now, just determine if you can or not) for it should have some impact on the camera you choose.
Image quality: compression
A moderately obscure issue, it is, however, worth looking into. Digital images are actually quite huge graphic files. This presents a serious storage problem in the field. For example, the high resolution images from the Sony FD91 uncompressed is 2.1 MB! Rather difficult to fit on a 1.3 MB floppy, no? As a result, it is not possible to use the high resolution (1024 x 768) in uncompressed BMP format. This is something you don't discover until after you buy the camera.
The answer is compression, using the popular JPEG technology. But with JPEG the camera designers can build in the level of compression. In the case of the Sony, they selected two levels, standard and fine. Now it is possible with fine setting not only to get one picture on a floppy, you can get several on a floppy. With a higher compression setting (standard), about twice as many.
So we can conclude that compression is good. Well, there is a problem. When you compress images using JPEG technology there will always be some loss of image quality. At high quality level there is a low loss of quality, so much so that you may find it difficult to detect. But as the level of compression increases the quality loss will be more obvious. Eventually it will be very noticeable and may be reason to consider the images ruined.
Digital images do not deteriorate over time and will remain exactly the same so long as the numbers in the file are intact. Compression takes place from the time the light strikes the CCD and is done before the file is transferred to digital film. Do not think that the image will degrade from that point on as silver film would. This is not a reason to select high quality compression.
Once you buy your camera, you should do a lot of experimenting with the different compression levels. Compare the results on your computer and see for yourself what you're losing compared to what you save in storage space. Make a series of prints on your inkjet or dye sublimation printer. You may be surprised at how little you lose with high quality JPEG or you may be shocked at how much noise from the compression process is introduced into your image when you use low quality JPEG. The objective of these experiments is to help you gain a concept of what the compression issue means to your camera and especially to the photographic work you will be doing. You've "arrived" when you can evaluate the photo task and match it with the appropriate JPEG level setting. This is hard to do because most people subconsciously do not want to sacrifice even the slightest bit of quality. Even the idea of thinking that some pixels will be altered is enough to make them cringe. But in reality, JPEG isn't all that bad.
Your choice to work with uncompressed images might be based on the computer modifications you plan to do. With a lot of Photoshop work ahead of you and that some of the functions will reduce quality, it is probably best to start with the highest possible quality and then let the computer work slowly erode it to its final form. Starting with low quality and then processing the image on the computer may result in an unacceptable image very quickly. Photoshop users know which functions will show noticeable quality loss and which will not. The choice to use uncompressed quality levels on your camera should not be made simply because you are afraid of losing even the slightest level of quality.
Each manufacturer has to deal with the compression issue so you should carefully study the specifications. What you are looking for is a range of choices. It should be up to you to determine how much compression you want which is actually saying, "How much quality loss are you willing to tolerate?" But this could change depending on your specific objectives when using the camera. Pictures just for fun can be compressed highly to stretch your storage space. But pictures that will end up being printed in a color brochure probably should not be compressed very much, if at all. It all depends on what you plan to use the images for.
At the very least a camera should offer three options. First, there should be an option to save the file uncompressed. This is the highest possible quality but it also yields the largest files. Second, there should be a JPEG option that compresses the files with a minimum of quality loss. The third option should compress the files with the objective being the smallest file size. From a quality standpoint these images are inferior but from a storage standpoint, you can fit a lot of images on your digital film. If your desired camera offers more choices, this may be a plus but be sure the three basic options are available.
Of course there is the issue of digital film. The compression settings are directly related to the amount of digital film you will need. If you haven't got the money, you may be forced to use a lower compression setting; like it or not! On the other hand, you'd be amazed at how fast you can fill up your digital film with a high quality setting. It's all part of managing your digital photography system. What you have to do here is evaluate the flexibility the camera offers. You may wish to avoid cameras with only one option or you may be suspicious of a camera that offers a lot of not very useful settings only because it is easy to program it into the camera. This is one of those concerns that is largely hidden and only you can determine after you have bought the camera and worked with it awhile.
The other quality issue is the resolution. No, not the highest resolution, but in the other resolutions available. Ideally, you should have a list of resolutions available for you to pick from. The photographic assignment at hand should determine the resolution. Having only a single resolution available is a disadvantage because it may not serve your needs for all applications. Lower resolution? Yes, there are many times with the highest camera resolution is overkill. Consider reference photos you use for your own purpose. Simple documentation photos such as the contents of your house for insurance purpose. Photos for the web are very low resolution. When selecting your camera, check out the list of available resolutions. Having more of a selection is better. But study what is available. You may find that you are going to be trapped into resolutions that are either too high or too low. Decide if you can live with these limitations!
The opinions of others
Be careful about the opinions of others (and that includes this article!). The main point is that you should evaluate whether the advice you are getting is based on some one else's personal objectives. Things like, "I wouldn't want..." should be suspiciously considered. The advice of others should help you evaluate the digital camera scene against your own objectives. Anyone who says cameras with resolutions less than 2 or 3 megabytes are useless is being biased because they are not considering the fact that these cameras are overkill for web or e-mail work.
Determine if the person you are asking questions to can identify with your objectives. If they ask you a question like, "What do you want do do digital photography for?" then they are expressing a concern to help you with what you may want or need. On the other hand, you are really in trouble if you can't answer that question. They cannot give you any appropriate advice and will probably default to standard answers or maybe even try and guess what you are trying to accomplish.
Be careful what you read. Reviews must be evaluated on some sort of criteria that gives weight to certain features more than others. This means they have to measure cameras against some set of objectives. Quite obviously, high resolution seems to be far more important than other features. As a result, a slightly lower resolution camera with nice features and operation capability may be scored lower but actually be the perfect camera for your work. Realize that reviewers actually do their best to separate the lot but they simply cannot identify with your specific objectives.
When you hear or read the opinion of others, look for information that will support your objectives. Does a particular camera support the features you think are important for your work? Is a camera all that bad because it doesn't offer a feature you have not interest in? While reading, look for information that will help you learn about the cameras so that you will make as intelligent a decision as possible. The worst thing to do is to delegate the decision to a reviewer or believe the conclusions of others. Don't buy a camera based on anyone's recommendation, only on the basis of your own research. You are simply going to have to make your own decision. This is, by the way, very hard to do. But it is your task.
Buy!
If you're getting the impression that this article didn't answer the question for you and suggest which camera to buy, that was the intention. The objective of this article was to help you be more aware of some of the issues that will help you select the camera that you need, not what anyone else says you should buy. Only you know your objectives. Buying a digital camera is an adventure as well as a practical solution to your everyday problems. With careful consideration you can select the most appropriate camera. Take pictures and enjoy!
