LENS CAPTURE

• What's your budget?
  If it's only $150, then the selection is pretty much narrowed to a point-and-shoot digital camera. There are still plenty of offerings to choose from at this price point. If the answer is $500 and up, then there are choices ranging from high-end point and shoots, XLRs and several digital SLR cameras to be had.
  
  
• What will you be taking photos of?
  Family and pets - you'll need image stabilization to get the sharpest photographs of fast moving children and the family dog. If your family consists of large groups, then you'll need a nice wide angle lens to get everyone in the shot. Since the majority of cameras available today provide some sort of self-timer, you can also be in the photo. You'll need a tripod or a steady camera platform for this to work.
  
  Action or sports - here's where the difference between cameras become more obvious. You will need "fast glass" which means a camera, or lens if using an dSLR, which allows for very large apertures (lens opening) such as f/2.8 or even f/1.8 or f/1.4. This will allow you to use very fast shutter speeds to stop the action. Without this, not enough light will reach the camera's sensor and your photograph will be underexposed.
  
  
• How much creative control do you want?
  While today's point-and-shoot cameras come chock full of mode settings such as landscape, portrait, night, macro, etc., these modes usually do not allow for customization. You'll want a camera that provides, at minimum, the following: aperture priority (aka Av mode), shutter priority (aka Tv mode), and definitely a manual mode which allows you to choose the aperture and shutter settings for a particular scene.
  
  
• What will you do with the captured images?
  If you plan on making poster prints (16" x 20" or larger) of the images you shoot, or you plan on cropping, or zooming into something in the image, then you'll definitely need a high mega pixel camera. If you don't plan on printing anything larger than an 8" x 10", or plan on sending most of your images to family and friends via email, then high mega pixels are not a real concern. Nearly all point-and-shoot cameras sold today, have plenty of resolution (mega pixels) to satisfy most requirements.

So what's the difference between a 10-mega pixel point-and-shoot camera costing $200 and a 10-mega pixel digital SLR costing hundreds more?
The size of the image sensor, that's what! The smaller the sensor, such as the ones found in point-and-shoot cameras, are very tiny. The smaller the sensor, the more noise (not good) you experience in your images. These small sensors make it extremely difficult to take acceptable photographs in low light situations such as indoors or at night. Digital SLR cameras have much larger image sensors and can handle these low light situations much, much better.