Worst 5 Camera Buying Mistakes

What Not to Do When Shopping for a Digital Camera
By Michael Carr, About.com

You may know what megapixels and zoom lenses are, but do you know what not to do when shopping for a digital camera? Here are the worst digital camera shopping mistakes.

1. Buying a Digital Camera Without Using it First
This is probably a fairly common mistake, but easily the worst. It's so easy to get caught up in reviews and specs and features and comparisons, and forget one essential fact. You need to like the camera. That means, even if you buy the camera online, you should first hit a local camera store and handle the camera. You want to be sure it's a powered, fully functional model (and it's the exact same model that interests you , not a "similar" one). Also don't be afraid to asks a salesperson to take it off the tethers if that interferes with your ability to handle it. Pretend you're taking pictures. See how it feels in your hand. Try to do specific tasks, and see how hard the camera controls are to navigate.
Digital Camera Buyer's Guide

2. Buying the Most Expensive Digital Camera You Can Afford
It can be tempting to get the coolest, slickest, most high-end camera you can afford. That doesn't mean you should. For example, if you're new to photography you won't want an advanced digital SLR with lots of manual controls. If you're just looking to take pictures for your blog, you don't need 12 megapixels. There is no need to pay for features you won't use and, in fact, it will make using the camera more confusing and less pleasant. It's better to look within your budget, but focus on finding the best camera for your specific needs.
Digital Cameras by Price

3. Focusing Only on Digital Camera Megapixels
Megapixels are often the first thing people wonder about when considering a digital camera. Sure, you shouldn't ignore megapixels. It certainly shouldn't be your only consideration, and may not even be your primary consideration. In fact, if you have an older computer or you don't care to buy high-capacity memory cards, you will not want a 12 megapixel camera that will eat up storage space. Think beyond megapixels, because another feature (such as zoom) could be much more important for you.
How Many Megapixels Do You Really Need?

4. Being Wooed by Junk Digital Camera Zoom Numbers
If you need zoom, don't get fooled by inflated numbers based on digital zoom. Digital zoom is essentially useless. A salesman might give it a nice spin by saying something like, "You get a total zoom of 10x!" How much of that is optical? If it's just 3x optical, that is pretty much the standard zoom on digital cameras and nothing to get excited about. You always want to ask about the optical zoom rate. If you are used to film cameras, you should also ask about the 35mm equivalent so that you understand just what 5x optical zoom really means.
Optical Zoom vs. Digital Zoom

5. Not Knowing What You Want in a Digital Camera
There are an awful lot of digital camera features available, but you won't find many cameras that do everything well. It is better to understand the available features, and decide which features are the most important for you. Consider making a list of your three most important features, then rank them. That way, you can work on finding a camera that meets those needs first, and worry about extra features if they so happen to come in the camera you like.

Bridge digital camera

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Bridge digital cameras are a type of high-end digital camera. They are comparable in size and weight to the smallest digital single-lens reflex cameras (DSLRs), but they lack the removable lenses, larger sensors,[1] mirror, and reflex system that characterize DSLRs. The term "bridge" characterizes the way in which these cameras fill the niche between the DSLRs and the compact digital cameras. Although bridge cameras are closely related to consumer compacts, they are sometimes confused with DSLRs due to their similar bodies and large zoom lenses. Almost all bridge digital cameras feature full manual controls over shutter-speed, aperture, ISO, white-balance and metering. Generally, their feature sets are similar to DSLRs, except for a smaller range of ISO sensitivities due to their smaller sensors (a DSLR has a 35mm, APS, or 4/3 size CCD or CMOS) and less expandability options (such as interchangeable lenses, battery grips, and wireless flash options).


One fixed but versatile lens

An example of a superzoom bridge camera, the Panasonic Lumix DMC-FZ30
Because bridge cameras have small sensors, their lenses can also be smaller than DSLR lenses while providing comparable zoom abilities. As a result, very large zoom ranges (from wide-angle to telephoto, including macro) are feasible with one lens. The typical bridge camera has a telephoto zoom limit of over 400mm (35mm equivalent), although newer cameras reach over 500mm.[2] For this reason, bridge cameras typically fall into the category of superzoom cameras[3]. The ability to fit such a wide zoom range in one single small-diameter lens makes lens interchangeability redundant for most photographers. However, most bridge cameras allow the use of secondary lenses to improve wide angle, telephoto or macro capabilities. These secondary lenses typically screw onto the front of the primary lens either directly or by use of an adapter tube.

LCDs and EVFs as principal viewfinders
Bridge cameras employ two types of electronic screens as viewfinders: The LCD and the electronic viewfinder (EVF). All bridge cameras have an LCD with live-preview and usually in addition either an EVF or an optical viewfinder (OVF) (non-parallax-free, as opposed to the OVF of DSLRs, which is parallax-free). The existence of a high-quality EVF is one of the advanced features that distinguish bridge cameras from consumer compact cameras.

Electronic viewfinders (EVFs) vs DSLR reflex viewfinder comparison

Live-preview EVF advantages
Since in bridge camera there is no mirror that blocks the image formed by the objective lens from being projected over the sensor, as is the case with DSLRs, the LCD and EVF of bridge cameras continuously show the image generated by the sensor. This continuous digitally-generated live-preview has some advantages and disadvantages over the optically-generated view through the OVF of DSLRs. One advantage is that the digital preview is affected by all shooting settings and thus the image is seen as it will be recorded (in terms of things like exposure, white balance, grain-noise, etc) which the OVF of DSLRs is incapable of showing [4]. Another advantage is facilitating the framing from difficult angles by making the LCD movable (vari-angle). Also the LCD and EVF show 100% of the image while previewing (WYSIWYG), while the OVF of some DSLRs (especially entry level DSLRs) does not cover the full 100%.

Live-preview viewfinder disadvantages


The Konica Minolta DIMAGE A200 (2005), the most sophisticated digital camera made by Konica Minolta before its fusion with Sony
The disadvantages however are that the electronic screens of bridge cameras do not work as well as the OVF of DSLRs in situations of low light (or in bright day-light with the LCD), where the screen might be difficult to see and use for framing. Also the screen is of low resolution and refresh rate compared to the very high resolution and instantaneous refresh provided by an optical path in the OVF of DSLRs. This low resolution makes it more difficult to focus manually. However, most modern bridge cameras
The Konica Minolta DIMAGE
A200 (2005)

implement a method that automatically magnifies a central frame within the screen (manual focus point) to allow easier manual focusing. A slow refresh rate means that the image seen on the screen will have a fraction of a second lag or delay from real scene being photographed. The electronic screens used in modern bridge cameras are gradually improving in their size, resolution, visibility, magnification and refresh rate.
Another disadvantage is battery life. A DSLR's sensor is not operating unless the shutter is open, and the electronic screen is typically off more, causing less battery drain.
LCD and EVF of bridge cameras continuously showing the image generated by the sensor causes superheating of the sensor increasing digital noise; in DSLR sensor is exposed to the light only for the time strictly necessary for the shot.

Examples of bridge cameras
Current examples of bridge cameras are the Canon PowerShot S5 IS, Fujifilm FinePix S100fs, Olympus SP-570UZ, and the Panasonic Lumix DMC-FZ50. The upcoming Casio Exilim Pro EX-F1 could also be considered a bridge camera, though its video features distinguish it from any other consumer camera. Kodak also produces a line of super-zoom cameras, though these do not have essential DSLR features such as the ability to use an external flash (with the exception of the EasyShare P-Series). Nikon currently manufactures the Coolpix P80, which is an 18x superzoom, but lacks the external flash capability of other bridge cameras. Minolta (before the Konica Minolta merger) marketed the DiMAGE series, with the Minolta GT manual fixed zoom lens. Their bridge digital cameras were known as ZSLRs (zoom lens, single lens reflex).

Exceptions

The Sony DSC-R1
Some cameras may share several bridge camera features, but differ for
some significant reason. For example, the Sony DSC-R1 (2005-2006) and the Sigma DP1 (2008) have non-interchangeable lenses and no mirror/reflex systems, but they have APS size imaging sensors. The DP1 is also much smaller than typical bridge cameras, and has a fixed focal length (non-zoom) lens. Digital rangefinders like the Leica M8 and the Epson R-D1 have no mirror/reflex systems, but do have interchangeable lenses and large imaging sensors; while these cameras are not DSLRs, they are very expensive and occupy a very different niche than do bridge cameras.
The Sony DSC-R1