by Chris Campbell
Yearly, many families go on vacations and almost all of them bring along their digital cameras. Most people feel that the best part of a vacation is capturing memories that you can always look at it.
There are literally thousands of digital cameras on the market, in all shapes in sizes. Having a specific budget in mind can greatly narrow down your list to a manageable size.
Digital cameras seem to be getting smaller and smaller every year. To some that seems great, because it makes them very portable, and easy to take with you. For others, the small size can make handling the camera and taking pictures cumbersome. Small buttons, small grips and big hands don’t necessarily go very well together.
Be sure to pack the camera in advance, with extra batteries, lenses, basically the whole deal! A vacation is meant to be fun of course, but also a place to take photographs to look back on.
The zoom capabilities of a camera are another important consideration. Thinking a bit about how you will use the camera can be a big clue as to what zoom you will want. Do you shoot lots of wedding shots from the back of the church where you can barely see the bride and groom? Or do you like to shoot lots of landscape photos on vacation? More zoom will certainly give you more options, but you can also end up spending more on lenses than you you do on the original camera.
The priority is to get the people in the photograph, and then if the field of view allows, move around the camera to get the scenery in. Countless times I have even done this, where I take pictures and all that is visible is half of my wives head. I guess it is easy to get carried away by beautiful landmarks and scenery
One thing that many people overlook is taking pictures that are not planned. By this, I mean take action shots. Sometimes, these are the best pictures. Catch your son or daughter in a happy moment, when they are laughing or smiling. The pictures that we are least expecting may turn out to be the best ones.
Details, details, details! Often times, the details of an object may be more intriguing to us than the entire object. For example, if you see a large landscape with lots of detail, do not only take a picture of the whole thing, but take close-ups of the detail.
How you plan to develop and display your photos is quite important as well. The image quality and resolution of your pictures will look vastly different when displayed on your cameras LCD vs blowing your pictures up to poster size to hang over your fireplace.
Lastly, take as many pictures as you can. With digital cameras, the great thing is that you can delete pictures you do not like with the click of a button.
A final note about special features would be prudent here. Plan on doing any underwater shooting? Does the camera have an optional underwater housing available? Got shaking hands? Maybe image stabilization would be a good option for you. Some cameras even do red eye reduction editing right on the camera, before you download your pictures. All these come at a price, so carefully consider whether the features are worth it to you. Knowing specifically what your looking for can only hedge your bet in getting the best digital camera for you.
