If you haven’t already got a digital camera (where have you been- sorry couldn’t help that) or you are thinking of buying a new camera. You really need to decide what you intend to with the camera, if it’s just for taking on holiday or taking pictures of the kids playing in the garden then you won’t need a digital SLR, but what other options are available.

The first thing that the majority of people will look at is the resolution of the camera. This is the numbers of pixels on the sensor and will determine what size an image may be printed at. A senor with 3,027 x 2,048 will have a resolution of 6 megapixels. Printed at 300dpi this will produce a print of 10 x 6” (25 x 15cm), which for normal family pictures is perfectly adequate. However, if you are planning on selling your images then this may not be good enough; we will discuss this in a later post.

So we have decided that a resolution of 6 megapixels is fine, but what’s the next thing we need to consider. Do you want flexibility, by this I mean a camera that’s small light weight and can easily fit into your pocket? With a compact camera you don’t have to worry about shutter speed or aperture all you do is point and shot, the camera will take care of all the settings. If this what you require than a compact will be perfectly adequate, the cost of camera might range from around £30 upwards but the results are good enough to put in the family album and you can enjoy them for years to come.

However, you may want to go down the route of the semi pro camera, these are very much like the digital SLR but you don’t have to change the lens, which can be a good thing but it does limit the camera somewhat, however the results can be just as good as a digital SLR. You can alter some of the setting, shutter speed, aperture and even the ISO settings. So it does feel like a digital SLR.

A digital SLR is the choice of professional or dedicated amateurs more expensive than semi professional cameras but do generally produce better results, these have an interchangeable lens. The choice of lens will depend on what you intend to shot, wildlife need a longer zoom lens 400mm or 500mm focal length, while landscape will need a wide angle lens. Of course the semi pro cameras do have zooms and wide angle settings but these are limited and do not produce as good as result as a digital SLR. If your considering a digital SLR, you really do need to consider what you intend to shoot, lens are expensive, I own a Sigma 50 – 500mm zoom lens, it produces great results but is very expensive, at about £700 it’s a very big outlay, and it very heavy you don’t want to carry it around for very long.

There are numerous magazines on the market that will help you decide make of camera to buy, but for family shots and the like go for the compact, if you want more control over your pictures than a semi pro type camera will suffice. If you to do even more or sell your pictures then maybe you are looking at a digital SLR.

But what ever you opt for enjoy yourself; photography is great fun and the images you take will remind in years to come the joy and happiness you have had through the years. Remember the saying a picture paints a thousand words.