What is the best digital camera to buy?

Seems like an honest enough question, but truthfully, it reveals more about the asker then they may realize.

What it reveals first of all, is that anyone asking the question probably doesn’t know a whole about about digital cameras to start with. It’s not just the question itself, but the open ended nature of the question that is revealing. No expert could answer that question, without having to grill the original asker with a number of other questions. Such as: “How long have you been taking pictures?” “What kind of pictures do you want to take?” “What’s your budget?” “Do you know the difference between an f-stop and a stop sign?”. OK, maybe not the last question, but you get the picture.

As with any product purchase, the purchaser needs to know what they want. While that may seem obvious, it’s often surprising how little time people take to seriously consider what they’re spending their money on. You need to know what you want a digital camera for, before you decide which of the top rated digital cameras to buy. Otherwise, your newly purchased toy will spend it’s last few days as a glorified dust collecting paper weight.

If you fall into the I-just-want-something-simple-to-use-because-my-brain-is-busy-doing-other-things category, then your looking for an easy to use point and shoot camera. The Canon PowerShot A570IS is a great pick in this category. I got one for my inlaws this Christmas. What with image stabilization, face recognition and 7.1MP its more than most amateur / casual photographers will ever want. Plus it’s a Canon, so you should be in pretty good shape with the realiability and quality thing.

Now, if you decide you want something a little better don’t mess around. You can piddle around by looking at a bunch of other point and shoots by adding another $100 or $200 to your budget, but by in large, it’s not really worth it. If you really want something better, then save yourself the money and grief and jump into a digital SLR camera. I say save yourself some money, since nickel and diming your way up the digital camera food chain is bound to cost you more in the long run, then just buying the camera you really want from the beginning.

Now, don’t worry it’s a lot easier than you may think. While it’s true that SLR cameras often come with a whole bunch of lens, and manual settings, and you will eventually need to learn big words like aperture and chromatic aberration. But, the keyword there is EVENTUALLY. Not right away, but eventually. In other words at your own pace. Any decent SLR these days come with plenty of auto settings. So, basically you can use your brand new SLR just like a point and shoot. With the added bonus being that you’ll get better pictures without even trying. Of course the added-added bonus is that you can get incredibly better pictures if you do try. Meaning spend the time to really learn what an SLR can do before taking pictures.

All this blather won’t help much, unless I make a good recommendation here. The Canon Rebel XT Digital SLR camera would be a good first choice. It’s currently available on Amazon for like $450, and that includes an 18-55mm lens. It’s one of the best selling SLRs ever and a much better value for the consumer then spending $300 on a point and shoot your only going to outgrow. The Rebel XT allows for the addition of multiple lenses, and enough manual tweaking to satisfy the geekiest of digital photographer hearts. Keep an eye on prices for the XT and the XTi (its slightly more advanced big brother), as the Rebel XSi will be hitting the streets soon with even more features, and it’s bound to drive down prices of the XT and XTi.




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March 11, 2008 · Filed Under Canon Powershot, canon-rebel

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