With so many models of digital camera around which one do you choose? For the first-timer it can be a pretty daunting experience trying to fathom out your megapixels from your interface port so here we try and clarify things a little.

When looking for a new digital camera, the first things you need to decide are:

 There's three categories of people that camera marketing bods like to put people in, amateur, prosumer, and professional. If you just want to point the camera and press a button to capture a magic moment, and you're not bothered about f-stops or that crazy focus thing, then you're an amateur. If you usually just point and shoot, but occasionally want to play around with the focus or exposure a little, then you're in the prosumer league. If you're making a living out of it then you probably won't be reading this as you're a professional.

Just what are these megapixels?

These days amateurs have a bewildering array to choose from. Over the years the average price of a point-n-shoot digital camera has plummeted from around £450 to £150 as technology has marched on and digital photography has become more mainstream. Manufacturers entered a 'megapixel' race touting the highest megapixel number as the be-all and end-all when choosing a camera, which in reality just wasn't the case. So what are 'megapixels'? Apart from sounding like a Peter Pan character, they are actually the tiny pieces of information that make up your photo. A digital photo is made up of thousands of tiny 'pixels' or dots, each one representing a colour. As there are so many of them, literally thousands, they get the 'mega' prefix slapped on. A camera that can take photos that has 2,560 pixels across and 1,920 pixels down is called a 5 megapixel camera (2,560 x 1,920). Look at the images of the obliging swan below to see the difference a higher megapixel camera makes to picture detail when the photo is magnified.

Low megapixel	High megapixel

So the more pixels there are in a photo, the more detail is stored. Frankly the difference between a 4 and a 5 megapixel camera is only worth bothering about if you're going to make A3 prints or larger, or if you use a computer a lot to crop your compositions (that is pick a part of the original photo and chop the rest off to get better framing whilst nobody is looking). The difference between a 2 megapixel and an 8 megapixel camera is naturally worth thinking about though. For taking family photos and holiday snaps you're probably best off with a four or five megapixel camera at the moment. You can get some great value cameras in this range and the amount of detail in the photo will give you good prints up to A3 in size, and more than enough detail for your usual 5" x 7" photos (even a 2 megapixel camera is fine for these if you're on a tight budget).

Optical whom?

Along with the number of megapixels, the other main selling feature you'll often find stuck all over your potential purchase is the optical zoom amount. The de facto standard these days seems to be 3x which is adequate but by no means awe-inspiring. Unfortunately the larger the zoom, the longer and heavier the lens system needs to be. If zooming up close to your subject is important then there are some newer compact cameras with a 4x optical zoom. If a compact size is not so much of an issue, then you can go the whole hog and get a whopping 12x optical zoom. Be aware though that at such high zooms any shakey hands will be very noticeable so you're either going to have to get off the caffeine, get a tripod, or get a camera with a built-in anti-shake system. A few example cameras are shown below (you can click on them if you like to see specifications and price comparisons).

Nikon 4600	Canon Powershot A510	Konica Minolta Z5

The LCD

Next up is the LCD (liquid crystal display). Nearly always housed on the back of the camera, this not only warms your nose whilst composing the photo but also lets you look at your latest and greatest right after taking the shot. Gone are the days when photos would get forgotten on an undeveloped film hiding in the sock drawer - now you can see your photos straight away. There are a couple of things to look out for with these. First there's the size which currently ranges from around 1.5" to 2.5". Bigger is definitely best for previewing your photos but be aware that it also means a shorter battery life as the battery strains to keep the larger screen lit up. Then there's the LCD surface. Some have an anti-reflective coating which is a definite boon for sunny days, and one or two have a protective plastic cap (although to be honest I've yet to see this on anything other than professional level cameras) .

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