How to choose a great camera that's right for you

Modern digital cameras generally fall into three categories, and each has its pros and cons – it’s not simply a matter of the most expensive being the best.

For quick snaps of your friends and family, you needn’t venture further than an ultra-compact – these are highly portable cameras that choose how to expose and focus your photos entirely automatically, so you needn’t worry about your shots.

Good ultra-compacts can easily be found for under £150. If you’d like more control over how your photo is taken, around £250 will get you a highend compact camera with a manual mode and a longer zoom, but be prepared for a larger, heavier body.

Lastly, if you’re serious about photography, a digital SLR (singlelens reflex) camera will give you full creative freedom over your photos, as well as the ability to swap the camera’s lens in different situations.

Digital SLRs used to be large, heavy and expensive, but in the last few years both size and price-tag have been massively reduced, and capable models can be found for a little over £400.

Of course, manual control of your photographs means it’s a lot easier to take a poor shot, so do consider whether you’re willing to invest the time and effort in learning to use a digital SLR properly.

The main difference between compact and SLR digital cameras is the way in which pictures are framed and recorded.

Compact cameras constantly feed predigitised image data to the screen on the rear of the camera so you can frame the shot; most modern compacts don’t come with an optical viewfinder at all. When you press the shutter, the camera freezes the image and stores it to memory card.

With a digital SLR, the viewfi nder takes its image directly from the lens by way of a mirror – hence the term ‘single lens’. When you press the shutter, the mirror flips down in a ‘reflex’ action, exposing the digital sensor behind it to light from the lens.

This mechanical process can be repeated many times a second and occurs almost instantly, so it’s the obvious choice if you’re interested in capturing split-second action such as a horse breaking the ribbon at a finish line.

Another consideration is the zoom. Zoom on a digital SLR depends on what lens you use, but there are two types of zoom on a digital compact – optical and digital.

Optical zoom physically changes the spacing of the glass within the camera’s lens, like a telescope. As long as you hold the camera still, images will look great at any magnification.

Digital zoom merely takes the central portion of the image and stretches it. This leads to a loss of quality, and for this reason should be avoided – if you really can’t get any closer to your subject, wait until the image is on your PC and crop it using an image editor.

Of course, there are the usual smaller considerations – if you already own one type of memory card, it might be worth finding a camera that uses that format. And if you’re likely to forget to charge it, a camera that accepts AA batteries will make sure you’re not caught out.

Don’t be afraid to ask the sales assistant if you can take a demo camera outside in the sun to check screen glare or try out the flash in the shop. Finally, don’t be swayed by the premise of built-in MP3 and video players – you’ll often be paying for these extras and not for better picture quality.

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