Best Digital Camera Buying Guide

Buying a digital camera doesn't have to be a difficult decision. Unfortunately, for first time digital camera buyers that's easy to say, but hard to believe. There are literally thousands of digital cameras for sale ranging in price from $50 up to tens of thousands. How is a first time digital camera newbie supposed to decide?

There are a few simple rules. The first one being, pick a budget and stick to it. Don't let a salesperson try to sell you a whole whack of bells and whistles for another hundred bucks. Chances are you'll never use them, and besides pretty much any good digital will meet your basic needs. Which should be to take good quality images simply and consistently.

Another simple rule to apply, is to ignore 90% of the cameras in your budget range. There's likely to be so many cameras to consider, you may as well just eliminate all the junk, and only focus on the top 5 cameras in your price range. This one step will greatly shorten our shopping list. Simply check out a good digital camera buying guide, and only look at their best cameras. This usually means the ones with a 4 or 5 star rating.

Let me say a little bit about megapixels. Don't base your buying decision on the number of megapixels the camera has. Years ago, megapixels was arguably the single biggest criteria in determining the quality of a digital camera. That's simply not true any longer. I'm not sure the camera manufacturers have figured it out yet, as they continue to babble on about megapixels in all their sales sheets like it was the holy grail of digital photography. Any camera with 5 or more megapixels will be fine for the average picture taker. Instead of megapixel, check out image sensor size instead. The bigger the better.

One final little rule to stack the odds even more in your favor. Don't just read a bunch of reviews and specs, and then order your digital camera online. You'd be missing a very important step. While it's true that some of the best prices for digital cameras can be found online, you really need to hold the camera in your hands before making a final decision. And, as far as I know none of the digital camera websites I've visited are sophisticated enough to let you do that. You need to get out of the house, cruise down to your favorite (or least favorite) electronics / camera store and try a few models out. Be sure to take plenty of pictures, and pester the salesperson with all your newbie questions. They love it . . . really;) If they're really nice, see if they'll let you take a demo camera home for a few days to try out. Check out the picture quality, camera weight and feel. Make sure all the controls and menus seem intuitive and easy to use for you. Hands on is the best way to determine if a camera is right for you.

In recap, our simple rules for buying a digital camera were:

1. Set a budget and stick to it.

2. Eliminate 90% of the cameras in your price range.

3. Don't base your buying decision on megapixel spec.

4. Do a hands on test with your digital camera short list models.

Follow all those rules, and you should get the digital camera of your dreams.