Anyone who is looking to buy a digital camera, is being confused, overwhelmed and bewildered these days with the opportunities and possibilities to choose from. There is such a big range manufacturers, cameras, features available, that its literally insane. It's enough to make someone look back to the times of Model T, when Ford offered to his customers to choose from any color they wanted for the car, as long as this was black.
Let's look at possibly the best manufacturer for digital cameras today - Canon, plus three cameras from their best. Don't worry, the cameras are not only the expensive toys. Their price ranges up to $1500, from $200, and one is priced in between. Canon is probably the most prolific manufacturer of digital cameras nowadays. Part for that reason is the fact that they cater for every type of photographer. From real beginner to seasoned professional. That's the reason why they are selling more cameras including camera lenses than any other manufacturer.
My first choice is Canon Powershot A720 IS. If you are only interested in a simple camera for beginners, a point and shoot one, this one is very easy to use, and any beginner will love it. If you do not mind fiddling a little with A720's metering mode and white balance, you could compensate picture taking in imperfect lighting situations. For approximately $200, you can get image stabilization, 6x zoom, 8 mega pixels, plus a real optical viewfinder. The viewfinder is not present in many cameras for this class, however, not in A720.
This is fortunate, because it helps framing the shots much better than an LCD, plus it can save the battery power when turning off the LCD. If you want to use the 6x zoom to the maximum, my recommendation is to use a good tripod. Just like many cameras for this category, theres a delay between taking pictures if you are using flash. This is around five seconds normally.
My second favorite is Canon PowerShot G9. This is designed for amateurs who want to get more serious on the photos they take, but the budget to move to the next stage is impeding them. The nice big feature that you get from the G9 and which you will not find in a simple point and shoot camera is the RAW format. This basically saves the images without compressing the pics into any format like jpg for example and you wont lose quality. RAW format is more flexible in editing the pictures later. Basically you get extra manual control like an SLR, but without added size and the extra lenses. G9 can be bought for about about $500 nowadays.
My third pick is Canon EOS 40D. At the current price of about $1200 only the camera body, be sure that you leave room for lenses in the budget (maybe $1500 a basic lens). The only limit for taking amazing pictures using this camera is you, the photographer plus your budget to spend for new lenses.
Let's look at possibly the best manufacturer for digital cameras today - Canon, plus three cameras from their best. Don't worry, the cameras are not only the expensive toys. Their price ranges up to $1500, from $200, and one is priced in between. Canon is probably the most prolific manufacturer of digital cameras nowadays. Part for that reason is the fact that they cater for every type of photographer. From real beginner to seasoned professional. That's the reason why they are selling more cameras including camera lenses than any other manufacturer.
My first choice is Canon Powershot A720 IS. If you are only interested in a simple camera for beginners, a point and shoot one, this one is very easy to use, and any beginner will love it. If you do not mind fiddling a little with A720's metering mode and white balance, you could compensate picture taking in imperfect lighting situations. For approximately $200, you can get image stabilization, 6x zoom, 8 mega pixels, plus a real optical viewfinder. The viewfinder is not present in many cameras for this class, however, not in A720.
This is fortunate, because it helps framing the shots much better than an LCD, plus it can save the battery power when turning off the LCD. If you want to use the 6x zoom to the maximum, my recommendation is to use a good tripod. Just like many cameras for this category, theres a delay between taking pictures if you are using flash. This is around five seconds normally.
My second favorite is Canon PowerShot G9. This is designed for amateurs who want to get more serious on the photos they take, but the budget to move to the next stage is impeding them. The nice big feature that you get from the G9 and which you will not find in a simple point and shoot camera is the RAW format. This basically saves the images without compressing the pics into any format like jpg for example and you wont lose quality. RAW format is more flexible in editing the pictures later. Basically you get extra manual control like an SLR, but without added size and the extra lenses. G9 can be bought for about about $500 nowadays.
My third pick is Canon EOS 40D. At the current price of about $1200 only the camera body, be sure that you leave room for lenses in the budget (maybe $1500 a basic lens). The only limit for taking amazing pictures using this camera is you, the photographer plus your budget to spend for new lenses.