How to Choose and Use a Digital Camera

People often ask me about choosing and using digital cameras, so I thought I'd put together those discussions into a more accessible form. First, a disclaimer: all this is from a strictly amateur "fun" perspective. I've never done professional work, nor do I consider myself an "artist".

I have been using digital cameras since 2001, so not the very beginning, but a decent interval in this fast-evolving field. I've also been using film-based equipment since I was a kid (30+ years now!), and I put quite a lot of thought and research into it before going digital.

  • 1. Is digital as good as film?
  • 2. Why should I buy a digital camera at all?
  • 3. How much should I plan on spending?
  • 4. Are any brands preferable? Any to avoid?
  • 5. What about resolution?
  • 6. Is a close-up or macro mode useful?
  • 7. Is a continuous exposure or movie mode useful?
  • 8. What about all the other modes that cameras may have?
  • 9. What about zoom, both digital and optical?
  • 10. Different cameras seem to take different kinds of memory cards; what's going on there?
  • 11. What about batteries?
  • 12. What about connecting the camera to download photos?
  • 13. How do I get prints from digital images?
  • 14. How do I store all those digital images?
  • 15. Do I need to care about the bundled software, or buy anything else?
  • 16. What about RAW format?
  • 17. What about ergonomic issues?
  • 18. So what did you end up with?
  • 19. Where can I get more advice?






Copyright Richard Schooler, 2001-2008
schooler@alum.mit.edu
Up to Picture Index Last updated September 2008