Entry tags:

howto, photography

How to buy a digital camera #2: Mid-range ($150-$350)
Welcome to Day 2 of the Holiday Camera-Buying Extravaganza™! Sorry, I've been looking at too many advertisements. during my preparation.

Today I'm going to focus on what I consider to be the meat of the point-and-shoot market -- the truly portable cameras that vary from the clunky but capable to the ultracompact and slick. This is a market for people who want a camera with a good deal of capability, but don't want to come near the size and cost of a dSLR. This market has matured in some ways this year, finding its niche by putting out some really great cameras that can be stuffed in a pocket. It also has some pitfalls, though, as in the hyper-competitive market some makers have just tried to make their cameras better and better, and some seem to be loading up on gimmicks instead (generally, digital cameras don't make the best platforms for video games, nor should they. Stumble across the Picture of the Century, and you won't want to have used up your battery playing Dig Dug.)

Again, there's really a huge array of cameras in this market, so I'm going to focus on general principles.

MEGAPIXELS MATTER (but not how you think)
If you've been researching camera review sites or talking to enthusiasts, you've probably heard "Megapixels don't matter." That is, at the print sizes you're likely to make, there really is very little difference between 6 and 8, 8 and 10, or even 4 and 10, if the 4-megapixel camera was built right. That's true with any kind of camera, but in the compact market, megapixels matter in an important way—they can make your camera worse.

I remember a punch line from a 1980s joke that said "I can type 712 words per minute -- but none of them make any sense." That's sort of how it is with digital camera sensors. Every individual pixel on a digital camera is only good if it can pick up enough light to read an image. As these pixels get smaller and smaller, their ability to do that decreases -- the image gets noiser, loses contrast, etc. Given how tiny the sensors on point-and-shoots are, there isn't much room to pack them in … but that doesn't stop manufacturers from trying, just to impress people with numbers. So I'm sure it's possible to make a point-and-shoot with 45 megapixels -- the pictures just wouldn't look like anything.

Given that, and given that there's no way most contact-lens-sized lenses on these cameras can resolve 10 megapixels truly effectively, megapixels matter -- at the extreme end, they tend to make your pictures worse and will clog up your system with files much larger than you need. Many 10-megapixel point-and-shoots have enough other features that you may want them anyway, but I generally regard a MP count much over 6 as a bug, not a feature.

Here's a picture taken with a 2-megapixel camera and cropped down to about 1.5MP:



In addition to looking fine on the Web, it makes a passable 8x10. The other qualities of the camera are far more important. So, what are they?

FORM FACTOR
If you hate to use your camera -- if it feels wrong to you, if the menus and buttons don't make sense, than it's not going to do you much good. A lot of the cameras in this market have very important functions -- white balance, ISO settings -- buried two or three levels deep in a camera menu. Not good. Also, you need to know what your priorities are. The best pictures for the money will generally be found in the slightly boxy cameras that just want to take a nice picture and be done with it. But if you want a camera that can fit in your pocket, or — admit it — really want one that's impressive to look at, it's better to have a camera that takes decent pictures that you'll use than a camera that takes slightly better pictures that you won't. When possible, go to the camera store and HOLD these things, try to use them for a little while before you're stuck with it.

LCD Size:
Point-and-shoots have LCDs up to 3 inches (and soon beyond, most likely), making them look like PSPs with lenses. This can be nice, since you generally have to frame your shots through these, sometimes holding the camera a good deal away from your face. But take other things into consideration: Will I toss this camera around a lot? The bigger the LCD, the easier it scratches. Does the LCD take up so much place that I can't put my thumb anywhere? (Makers seem to forget that people actually have to HOLD these things).

ISO sensitivity
This aspect is really important to me. ISO basically is the digital version of film speed -- the higher numbers will give you faster shutter speeds but grainier pictures. If you tend to shoot moving targets in low light (especially without flash), you'll want cameras that take decent pictures at ISO 400 and above. Two years ago, you were pretty much out of luck. Now, though, there are a few good options. The class-leader here is far and away the Fuji F30, which can technically take shots up to ISO 3200, and can take actually decent shots up to ISO 1600. That's really impressive, and I'll likely pick one up as a pocket/street cam in the next few months. Canon's new models rate pretty good as well. Some otherwise great cameras fare pretty poorly here, especially cameras by Panasonic/Leica and Samsung.

Vibration Reduction/Image Stabilization
This is another boon in trick light, but it really has nothing to do with ISO sensitivity. A better ISO rating will stop motion; a well implemented VR will stop motion blur even better than a good sensor, but it's not going to help you with pictures of people, cats, or anything else capable of autolocomotion. Where it's really important is in cameras with long telephoto capabilities, since usually you need a very high shutter speed to get sharp images with a long lens, and VR brings that back into a normal range. Those cameras are outside today's range, though, so in most pocket cams with 3x to 4x zoom I regard VR as nice if the camera happens to have it, but not something that makes or breaks a deal. If you photograph slower-moving stuff than I do, though, VR may be very important.

Optical zoom
Here we're moving beyond the normal 3x zoom (and certainly beyond the digital-zoom-ripoff). Think about what you need here -- how telephoto do you need to go? A 4x zoom is generally a good spot for this market, but that's not the only number that matters. For general shooting, I tend to find that the wide end is important than the long end -- especially since NO point-and-shoots are all that wide. Some of these cameras' zooms start at an effective 38mm -- that's not wide at all. Most start at the slightly wider 35mm equivalent, and the "wide zooms" usually start at about 28mm -- this starts to be a nice wide angle to capture a scene, without providing the geometric distortion of a REALLY wide lens. Kodak has a few models, such as the Generally, I would prefer a 3x zoom that starts at 28mm to a 4x zoom that starts at 38mm.

The Little Things
You still need to check on battery life here, and the cameras in this range should have a pretty capable flash. As palimpsestic pointed out in the last post, how is the shutter delay? These days, cameras in the mid-range market should have pretty good response times. Web site reviews like DPreview.com or Imaging Resource are helpful for figuring out timing to the 10th of a second, but again nothing beats actually trying it. You should also look for cameras with good automatic white balance readings, so you don't have to take all of your snapshots into Photoshop.

Standout Models

Again, I open this up to comments, since there are so many I've never used. The F30 seems ideal for me -- but I am not you, nor are you me. It's not pocketable easily, no VR, no 3-inch LCD, not a truly wide angle -- most people just tend to shoot in better light than I do, or use flash more. The Canon G6 is a great camera that was released at a higher-priced segment, but has been coming down since its replacement. It also has two features that most cameras in this segment do not -- it shoots RAW (great if you know Photoshop) and has a genuinely fast lens, letting in at least twice as much light as most competitors. Many of the Panasonics, such as the LX1 (on the pricier end) are great cameras if you mostly shoot during the day -- very sharp, an intriguing 16:9 aspect ratio, and IS. In terms of raw sexiness, nothing to my mind beats the new Samsungs, although apparently the images from them are underwhelming. Thus the great philosophical question: Is it more important to take good pictures or look good doing it?