Buying a New Digital Camera Conclusion

When thinking about purchasing a new camera, there are many things to consider than just megapixels alone. Just like computer hardware, the amount of vRAM on a graphics card does not always make a graphics card faster. Before purchasing a new digital camera, you must ask yourself what you will be using the camera for. You must also consider what we talked about:

1. ISO – Determines the sensitivity of the camera sensor to light. Using a low ISO setting gives you smoother image quality but requires your shutter speed to be slower to capture enough light. A slower shutter speed is not ideal if you plan to hold your camera with your hands because your hands are not as still as something stationary, like a tripod. Using a high ISO setting makes your camera sensor more sensitive to light. This is good for low light situations where light is primitive. But having a higher ISO setting would generate noise and grain over the image. If too much noise is present, it makes the image no longer usable.
2. Shutter Speed – The amount of time the camera sensor is exposed to light. It is important to adjust your shutter speed as you adjust your ISO and aperture settings. Having too slow of a shutter speed would capture too much light. This will overexpose the image. The image becomes too bright and loses all the details in the brighter objects. Having too fast of a shutter speed will capture too little light. This would underexpose the image. The image becomes too dark and loses all the details in the darker objects. Good practice with using shutter speed will correctly expose your images.
3. Aperture – Controls the depth of field and the amount of light that comes into the camera. This is a mechanism built only into the lens, not the camera body. If you want more light to come into your camera, use the largest aperture your lens can provide (the smallest f number). If you want less light to come into your camera, use a smaller aperture setting that your lens can provide (a larger f number). Using a larger aperture will also isolate your subject from the background, giving you a nice blurry effect. Using a smaller aperture would sharpen the entire image overall.

These three make up the Holy Trinity when it comes to photography. Remember, when purchasing a new camera, megapixels are only important if you plan to print out huge images. Having a lot of megapixels is also good for cropping. But cropping away an image is like cropping away megapixels.

There are many other features, such as focus-points, build quality, video quality, weather proofing, burst mode, etc. Other DSLR cameras may also have the flexibility to use adapters for multiple sets of lenses from different manufacturers. I will not get into this topic for now, but I hope you have learned something to prepare yourself for the next time you plan on purchasing a new camera.