Camera

THINGS TO KEEP IN MIND BEFORE PURCHASING A CAMERA

A camera can be just a photo capturing device, just another addition to the whole lot of gadgets to a rich kid, or even another insane creation by humans. But actually its more to the little smart masterpiece. Today a layman can say all cameras’ have the same features, why should I bother on this one dude? You think that all cameras offer you all the features, yet keeping your device cheap and that too future proof? With Sony, Canon, Olympus, Nikon, Samsung, Kodak, Polaroid, running through the cut throat competition, it’s actually tough to pick the best one out of them. The giant manufacturers are trying their best to package all sorts of features into as little space, as well as budget that it has led to a revolution, opening up new vistas for beginners to photography, and easing and even more beautifying the procedure of capturing a breath taking snap!

With the soar in the megapixel field, everybody seems to be so very much bothered about the, bigger picture, but hey guys that’s where you miss out on the point. A camera of say about 6 MPs can produce a better picture than the one with a 10 megapixel. That depends on the quality of the sensors used and most of all if it’s a ccd or a cmos chip inside. CCD chips are more power consuming, and hence can’t be employed in devices like i-pod or cell phones, they have a cmos sensor, which is a bit inferior to CCD. And that’s why, cell phone industry is still not able to catch up with that latest camera offerings.

These days there are a lot of other factors too, that influence the goodness of a camera. Like say for example, there are:-

1)      Lens

A camera must have an unarguably good lens to produce clear images, just like Carl zeiss

2)    Number of megapixels

It’s a simple concept, megapixel to a layman can be taught as the size of the image captured, which eventually gives us the capability to zoom into far greater detailing of the picture, and enabling us to print bigger images. You should also note that the image quality of a 10 MP cam and a 5MP cam would be the same. A megapixel merely determines the size of the produced image not the quality.

3)     ISO rating

ISO was generally seen in cameras having, film cameras, and dealt with the shutter speeds of the film cameras. Though your camera might not have a film directly but still an ISO rating does influence the quality of the pictures taken. The ISO rating ranges from 50 to 1600 these days. An image captured under day light at ISO 50 would be far more appealing gently soft and natural looking than at ISO 1600. The need for a higher ISO is seen under dark lighting conditions. The latter produces brighter images but the results are more grainy, and sharper.

4)    Shutter speed

The greater the shutter speed, the greater is the possibility of you to take a breathtaking, moving shot.

5)     Exposure value

It’s a simple figure running in from –x to +x. it’s the exposure a camera can get to produce brighter images without compromising on the image quality unlike the ISO feature. It’s the simple play of optics and not any sort of an engineered algorithm. The more the exposure value, the brighter images you can click in the dark.

6)     Variable flash, contrast, saturation

Cameras these days, have an aim to enable the beginners in the field of photography to look like pro’s, and to do that, they pack a slim DSLR/cyber shot, with loads of variations to minimize the pain.

7)     Image stabilization algorithm

It’s an algorithm that has been programmed into a camera, to capture the subject even if you’re shaking.

8)    Efficient night shots

Tradition night shots include just the digital enhancement of lighting, thereby making the image, to a far grainier version of itself, losing out on the contrast, saturation, and not to forget the color balance. So try these features yourself before making the deal.

9)     Face detection

Ever seen pro photographers, moving the heads of their lenses, trying to focus on their subjects? Well what if the camera automatically adjusted the focus for you? And that too if you want the camera to focus on your girlfriend, and not on the tree, she’s standing besides, it’s possible with this algorithm. The camera’s these days have brains, so they can differentiate between people and non relevant subjects, and adjust their focal lengths according to your need without even saying anything. J

10)Smile detection engine

This algorithm is included so that whenever you get a perfect smile by the subject, you won’t miss the shot, because the camera on the detection of a smile will click the image  by itself.

11)   Greater optical zooming

This is the actual count of how much a camera can zoom in. of course there is a digital zoom option too, but that enlarges the image only digitally, either the size of the image is compromised on or its quality. So its preferable to have a camera to have a greater optical zooming.

12) HD video recording

Digicam’s are here for a long time now, and they have had a capability to record a video for a long time, but advancing with the technology, companies now offer high definition video recording with a 5.1 channel sound input. Also the camera must have certain control of the variations that can be done while capturing the video, like zooming in, increasing brightness, setting the color balance, tone.

13)  Simple GUI

A camera with a rather simple graphical user interface would be much more easier to operate, learn, taken full advantage of than the one with a complicated GUI

14) More battery backup

This should be one of your primary concerns that you should not run out of battery just before capturing the “1 shot”

15)  Tri-pod compatibility

A camera having a tri-pod compatibility can eventually do some good to you, even if you don’t think so. The possibilities of capturing great shots or videos increase when you have a tri-pod connected to your camera.

After you’ve done choosing the camera by specifications, its always recommended that you do a quick run through the models. Get familiar with the camera, and don’t compromise. It’s a means to see show the world, that how you see things, so its better you do a bit extra for this masterpiece.

All the best!