The New York Times recently published a digital camera buying guide. Though it contained no earth-shattering revelations, it did provide a useful rundown of some of the often overlooked aspects of buying a camera. And it was the most emailed article of the day, so clearly it struck a chord.

Here, then, is our summary of the main points in helpful blog format:

• Pay attention to shutter lag and start-up time. The Achilles’ heel of many digital cameras is the lengthy delay between when you turn the camera on and when you can take a picture.
• 3 to 5 megapixels is plenty (3 for party snaps, 5 for 16 x 20 prints). More resolution does not automatically mean better pictures, just bigger pictures.
• Look for at least 3x optical zoom. Ignore digital zoom — it’s irrelevant. More optical zoom is always handy, but it will mean a bigger camera.
• Consider getting more than one camera. One camera will never do it all, and you should consider getting a pocket-sized for snapshots and something more powerful for the African safari. At the very least, you can save some money by sharing accessories such as memory cards between the two cameras.
• Use camera review sites for research. Some of the more popular ones are listed on the right side of this page. The Phanfare forum might be a useful place to ask for advice as well.

This entry was posted on Friday, August 5th, 2005 at 4:07 pm and is filed under Digital photography. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response or trackback from your own site.