Which Digital Camera to Buy ?

Which Digital Camera to Buy is not only a helpful buyers guide, but also it alerts about the shameless false promises made by the consumer grade manufacturers. Asking which Digital Camera to buy is not a fool’s question, rather a wise man’s question to save the hard earned cash to readily get ripped off by misleading Advertisements.

Which Digital Camera to Buy : Define Your Need

There are clearly two grades or classes of camera users :

• One who wants to use the camera for basic purpose and the budget is limited
• One who wants to use the camera as a near professional hobbyist or being a real professional, usually budget is flexible enough to go higher to purchase extra components

Clearly, for the first class or grade of users, the choice is a point and shoot camera. Which Point and Shoot Camera you can think to buy, is already published before. Point and Shoot cameras now offers quite good features, it should be first choice for a novice user if DSLR is not the target to buy (or rather has less intention to become a pro or active hobbyist).

For the second grade or class, the choice is definitely a DSLR. That is also published before – Which DSLR Camera to Buy ?

The answer for Which Digital Camera to Buy would have been easy if the manufacturers has not created more deceiving segments. There is a deceiving class of digital camera. which looks like a DSLR, it is called Mirrorless Interchangeable-Lens Camera (DSLM). This class is better to avoid from our experience, because it is neither a horse nor a donkey. In between is called a mule.

Which Digital Camera to Buy : Points Specially Newbies Must Know

• The sensor size is the main determining factor of the quality of the digital camera as well as the image processing engine.
• Mega-pixels, after a level has less to do with anything.
• The size of lens in diameter matters, bigger the diameter, better will be the camera. Obviously it is over generalization for the newbies, the lens can not become of a diameter like 1 foot diameter.
• In all static advertisements, the camera model shown is digitally rendered, it is not a photograph. Quite obviously it will look far better than the real. Physically checking it is a big point.
• In all static advertisements, the ‘sample’ images are usually from a Pro Grade DSLR.
• It is probably better to buy a digital camera by physically checking it in real life from a real shop. Your hand might not be as bigger as my hand. If I say, EOS 1100D feels lighter for me, I am stating a subjective opinion. I am used with heavier DSLRs.
• It is better not to buy a funky colored digital camera, like ‘ocean blue’, ‘romantic pink’, ‘bloody red’ etc. The choice should remain within black and native metal color (which you say steel color). Apart from getting the romantic part off from pink to become fade with time, optically it is better to use black, an attractive color might attract a ‘hobbyist thief’ more, its difficult to get rid off it on Ebay (its kind of ‘Peoples Choice’), on serious side; it might make an animal from nature getting scared. This is important as nowadays, some entry level DSLRs are getting color too. You might want to go outside for nature photography.
• For DSLR only : Usually for the mid range to full frame DSLR, the brand of choice is Canon. The reason is nothing but availability of less costly third party accessories, firmware hacks etc. There is probably not much technical difference between Nikon and Canon. Depending on location, Nikon might have non-existing support. It is better to stay away from ‘new comer’ brand to camera field.