tcbutler.co.uk

Well, there are a lot of different guides around, so why have I written one? Well, I know a bit about cameras, but not everything; I know more than most people but less than a lot… I thought I’d write down my layman’s thinking before I forget it. I wrote most of this as an email of advice to a friend, but I’ll probably pop back and update it in the future.

1. Places to read about cameras
www.stevesdigicams.com is fantastic; some cameras have slightly different names on the site because it’s run by an American person, but otherwise it provides large clear photos of the cameras, simple reviews with illustrative screenshots and things, a good conclusion for each camera plus 20 or so photos taken with each unit to marvel at. It also provides links to a load of other review sites, so I won’t bother listing them.

2. Places to find/ buy cameras
www.kelkoo.co.uk, www.shopping.com et al are good comparison sites. If you know which camera you’re after, it’s always worth typing its name into these sites to see if you can get it any cheaper. Beware of sites that advertise excluding VAT; there are still a few of these around and they get one needlessly excited.
www.amazon.co.uk, www.ebuyer.co.uk are good places to browse and to look for competitive prices.
www.jessops.co.uk are often a bit too pricey, but are useful as a guide, and most importantly are the first port of call if you want to try out a camera properly or ask for advice. Additionally, they used to (not sure if they still do) offer price matching with Amazon – I bought my last camera this way, from the particularly nice chaps at the Jessops in Putney near the cinema (to be recommended).
www.ebay.co.uk is a great place to buy or sell almost anything (sic) and can sometimes offer very competitive prices, though you have to look out for sellers based in the US or China who may charge a lot of postage, and on whose goods import taxes are sometimes applied. However, there are lots of UK sellers upgrading their units and you can pick up relative bargains on products in very good condition.

3. What to look for

• Megapixels: This determines the total number of pixels (units of area) available to record an image. This is like the quality of the film in a 35mm camera; coarse film can’t produce the same definition of image. 4 megapixels is pretty big (2304 pixels by 1728) which is considerably larger than a standard computer monitor. To see how big these can print out at good quality, look at megamyth.homestead.com/printsize.html. I took a 3.2 megapixel camera travelling with me, had a few photos printed at Boots in A4 and they look perfect. In fact, have a look at my gallery if you’re interested: Tom’s travelling gallery.
• Lens: Tricky one – you can only really find out the quality of a lens by reading indepth reviews (use the link above). However, a good indicator of a good lens is that it has an optical zoom rather than fixed lens. Digital zooms are non-features – they mean absolutely nothing; they increase the apparent zoom level while destroying the detail in the photos.
• Screens: all digicams have screens, some are crap (they might be big, but they are low resolution, so hard to tell whether you took a good photo or a bad one). Reviews can help with this. Something else to look for in reviews is whether the screen is readable in sunlight – some cameras employ special coatings or clever light-meters to make sure you can still use the screen in full daylight, others don’t and hence are crap.
• Ease of use: I personally consider Canons to be by far the easiest cameras to use. This is a matter of personal choice, clearly, but I recommend (again) the review site above which takes you through how the user interfaces work. Often something to look for on easy to use cameras are lots of buttons – sounds complicated, but it’s always easier to turn the flash on with a button labelled flash, rather than with sub-menu 1.5 on the screen.
• Speed of response: sounds odd, there are several stages in taking a photo – the user lines it up, presses the shutter ready for the photo….. the camera meters the light, adjusts its aperture, auto-focuses and moves the lens elements, checks the light again, opens the shutter, records the image… which can on some cameras be a delay of up to a second between the press and the picture. Boot-up times are also important – film cameras are ready to use instantly, digital cameras have to start up, so check the reviews (and try them in the shops) with this in mind – it’s a pain to miss a great photo because your camera is asleep!
• Sensitivity: While the CCD (the camera’s sensor) might have a load of pixels, how well defined the photos are is a combination of many things. The lens plays a big part clearly, but also the basic quality and sensitivity of the CCD is important. Better brands use better CCDs – it’s that simple! A good indicator of the quality of a CCD is its ability to capture in low-light – it’s here that poor CCDs start showing weird colours and going really fuzzy. By and large, digital cameras aren’t as good in low-light (without flash) as film cameras, so it’s important to make sure the one you get is as good as possible.
• Low-light-focussing: Yet another ‘odd one’ but important for most people; cameras find it hard to work out how far things are in the dark. You need to know this to know how to set the lens and focus the image. Good cameras (such as a lot of good Sonys and all Canons) use some kind of focus illuminator or laser to ‘find’ the subject of the photo in the dark. Very important if you are photographing indoors, or at parties etc.
• Flash: a simple one; flashes can be too bright (over-exposing photos resulting in areas of one colour and no detail – for example a big white face) and they can be too close to the lens (flashes close to the lens cause red-eye). Good cameras automatically meter down a flash depending on your distance from the subject, and have a flash set a fair way from the lens.

So, that’s my tuppenneth-worth for now, more to follow! Let me know if you find this interesting.