Being frugal is also spending your money on rock solid items at the best price.
A digital camera is one of those consumer items which is worth its money. It enables a hobby which doesn’t have to cost anything extra. No films, no development cost, no print cost. Import into your computer, tag, organize, and create creative works from it; all while using free applications of course!
Better yet, digital camera’s are “improved” at such a fast cycle that the bottom of the market has yesterdays absolute top models for fractions of the price. At the time of writing you can have a great digital photo camera well worth its money and lasting you for years and years of photo pleasure for around $100 tops!
Especially if you’re new to the subject, how do you go about selecting value for money and not coming home with a dud?
- Set your budget: this is key. Don’t go over it. Remember, for a basic point and shoot digital camera $100 will suffice.
- Who is this digital camera for? This is where #1 comes back in. A basic point-and-shoot camera is $100 while a more advanced beginner model is closer to $400
- Decide on the camera size and type. I’d go for small and easy to hold here. Don’t just think about bringing the camera on vacation. Think about bringing it on a walk when you have a bottle of water in one hand, dog leash in the other; where goes the camera? Think about having the camera with you at all times in case you start to like photo snapping.
- Look at the lens. Valuable information here. A reasonable beginner camera will have a zoom in the range of 3x – 4x, or a 35mm equivalent of 35-140mm. DON’T pay attention to “digital zoom”. Optical zoom is the only true zoom. Digital zoom is enlarging an image.
- Count your megapixels. Squawkfox suggest a beginner camera should be 5-10 megapixel. Truth is, if you’re amining at 5×6″ prints or their digital equivalent, 3 megapixel will do you well
- Image Stabilization: Not all new technology is bad!
- About batteries. I tell you: don’t go with a camera with its own accu. Go with a camera that will take simple AAA or AA batteries. Buy some rechargeables and you’re set to go. I’d prefer a camera that uses no more than 2 AA batteries so you can have 2 spare ones on you. Believe me, this setup is a big money saver.
- Read the reviews, or not. I’d say not. Or skip the review and look at the photos they took. If it looks good to you, go for it.
- Skip the extras. The only accessory you really need is a decent sized memory card. A 2 gig card should be able to hold hundreds of photos and cost around $20.
- Beware of sharks.
Also; go for brand names. Buying a CMOS camera (bad, bad, bad, bad) is basically impossible from brands like Sony, Olympus, Pentax, Canon etc. Also, if you can get a cheap Canon model you might be able to enable expensive advanced features for free.
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