“7 Steps in Plain English”

Use this digital camera buyers guide to get the information you’ll need to make a great decision. It’s short and sweet AND it’s all written in plain English!
The goal of this digital camera buyers guide is to give you good useful information in a simple step-by-step process!
Alright! Let’s go…
What Will You Be Doing With Your Digital Camera?
Digital cameras make it easy to email, print and play with pictures. However, not all are made the same….some produce much higher quality images than others.
Before jumping into the digital camera buyers guide decide what you’ll be doing with your pictures. It’ll make your decision making much easier. You’ll save yourself some time and money!
• Are you interested in emailing pictures? Maybe using online photo albums or putting them on web pages?
• Will you be making some 4 x 6 or 5 x 7 inch prints as well?
• Do you also want some blow ups, 8 x 10 inch pictures perhaps?
• Or are you looking for professional quality images?
All set?
Great! Keep this in mind as you read the rest of the digital camera buyers guide…
Digital Camera Buyers Guide
Step #1Megapixels? You’ll Need Them
Understanding this first step of the digital camera buyers guide will save you the most time and money!
When looking to buy a digital camera you won’t be able to avoid making a decision about ‘Megapixels’. The term is plastered all over every camera ad.
There’s tons of confusing information about megapixels in digital camera buyers guides. Here’s what you need to know…
Digital pictures (or images – we’ll use both terms, how’s that!) are made up of lots of little dots called pixels. The more pixels, the sharper the picture.
Camera manufacturers report the number of pixels using the term ‘Megapixels’. One million pixels = 1 Megapixel, two million pixels = 2 Megapixels and so on.
Digital Camera Buyers Guide Tip: Sometimes you may see it referred to in horizontal and vertical numbers, like ‘1600 pixels x 1200 pixels’. Multiply the numbers to get Megapixels….in this case 2 Megapixels.
The more Megapixels the higher the quality of the image. Most stores carry cameras ranging from 1 – 11 Megapixels.
So you’d think your best move is to buy the camera with the most Megapixels that fits into your budget. Right?
Well, that’s one way and probably not such a bad approach.
However…
You may not need lots of Megapixels to really enjoy your camera and get great looking pictures. Here’s why…
If you’re planning on viewing your images on a computer screen (for example, in email messages, on websites, or in online photo albums) you won’t notice a difference between a 2 Megapixel digital image and one that has 4 or 5 Megapixels.


Your typical computer monitor can’t display all the detail that a 4 or 5 Megapixel picture contains. The images are just too big.
So when should you care about higher Megapixel cameras?
Answer: If you’re looking for enlargements. Pictures taken with higher Megapixel digital cameras (4, 5 and 6 for example) contain more information. These pictures can be printed at larger sizes before they start looking fuzzy.
The more Megapixels you want, the more you’ll have to pay.
Digital Camera Buyers Guide Tip: If you’re a casual user who wants to email some pictures to friends and family and print off some 5×7 inch pictures a 2 Megapixel camera will be fine (I use a 2.1 Megapixel digital camera and love it!).
Anything higher than 3 Megapixels may not be worth the money for a casual user.
You won’t notice any difference in picture quality of 5×7 inch prints or on your computer screen with more than 3 megapixels.
Of course there are exceptions…
If you’re a professional and have a real need for the sharpest picture available you’ll want to go for as many Megapixels as the budget allows.
As you move up the Megapixel chain the cameras will have more manual controls and add-ons like interchangeable lenses. You’ll also be able to develop big enlargements of your best pics.
One more tip…
There’s more to a good digital camera than Megapixels. Good lenses and computer sensors also play key roles in image quality. Make sure you’re getting these by sticking with the top manufacturers (Canon, Olympus, Fuji, Nikon, Sony and Kodak for example).
OK, let’s summarize:

Resolution  Email & Web Sites 5″ x 7″ prints 8″ x 10″ prints 11″ x 14″ prints
1 Megapixel         Yes - - -
2 Megapixel         Yes                 Yes - -
3 Megapixel         Yes                 Yes                     Yes -
4 Megapixel         Yes                 Yes                     Yes              Yes
5 and up              Yes                 Yes                    Yes              Yes
Digital Camera Buyers Guide and Tips Megapixel Summary

When putting this section of this Buyers Guide together I found the digital camera bestsellers list off Amazon.com really helpful.
It’s great because you can easily scan the hottest sellers, check out customer ratings and see the price for each camera all on the same page…

The best part of their site is reading the customer reviews of each digital camera. They give you a great idea of what to expect before you buy. Priceless!

Megapixels can be confusing, take time to understand them…review this step one more time if you have to…or send me an email with your questions. I’d like to help!
Hope you found this useful!
Next up in the digital camera buyers guide….Zoom!