by Chris Campbell
Are you ready to move up to a better quality of picture? Do you long for the quality of your old 38mm camera, but with the speed and ease of a digital? Or are you a professional who has resisted the siren call of digital, certain that it could never come close to the quality of film? Don’t despair friends, the answer is here. Digital SLR [SLR - Single Lens Reflex camera]. The one that is the professional photographer’s pride and joy. It’s the camera where both the image in the viewfinder and the one going to the storage medium pass through the same lens. The original in what you see is what you get. And yes, the digital versions can use the old 38mm lenses from the same manufacturer. What’s not to love?
Start in the same place you would as for a film camera. What are you going to use it for? Will you be using it for action shots or portraits in a studio? Will you be toting it around in the wind and weather? Digital SLR cameras offer a huge variety of options.
When you do expect that you’ll be taking photos and keep them for a long time to come, it’s recommended to take a digital camera with you, as the quality of a cell-phone camera isn’t great. If you like photography, a digital camera is a must.
However, it might be difficult to choose a camera, if you never bought one before. The points I talk about below should help you with your choice.
Find out what you need before you go out to buy a digital camera. There are two directions that people choose from usually. They either want to learn a bit of photography, or they want just to take photos of their friends and family.
You can pay anywhere between $100 and $1000 for a digital camera, so you should know how much you’re willing to pay for one. Obviously, if you want to learn photography, you should set aside more money than you would for a small digital camera. If some fun is all you want, $3-400 should be plenty for a standard digital camera with the normal features.
Remember, with digital cameras nearly all of your expenses are in the initial purchase of the camera hardware. The camera body, lenses, battery and storage medium are your principle expenses. Once you’ve acquired these, you will be set for a long time. Don’t forget about reusing your old 38mm lenses on the new camera. They are quite usable, provided that they were made by the same manufacturer.
You will need approximately 2.5MB of disk space for a decent quality photo, so a measly 400 pictures you would shoot on a road trip in one day would eat up a whole gigabyte.
Find out if the camera you want to buy is compatible with the computer you own. The camera’s manual will tell you what requirements it has. The seller should know this information.
