David Pogue's Digital Photography: The Missing Manual

Chapter 2. The Only Features That Matter

The people in charge of marketing digital cameras these days—the stores, Web sites, and camera makers—seem to have a pretty simple approach: Blast your brain to smithereens.

Quick, which is better: a 12-megapixel camera with antishake, 60 fps AVI-format videos, face detection, and red-eye removal? Or a 10-megapixel model with 4X optical zoom, an electronic viewfinder, an autofocus assist lamp, and Wi-Fi uploading?

Most people wind up buying whichever one is prettier.

But you—you're different. You've gone to the trouble of picking up a book on digital photography. So the feature you might be most interested in might be—oh, I don't know—picture quality?

It could happen.

So here's a tour of the various features and specs of today's digital cameras, listed roughly in order of importance. It's a pretty long list, and it's a pretty long chapter, because cameras today are extremely sophisticated bits of machinery. But by the time you've slogged all the way to the end, you'll have a solid appreciation for the things these little gadgets can do.

Note

This chapter presents a list of features your camera candidate might have.

There are some features, though, that all cameras have: an LCD screen on the back; a Play button to review your shots; a power button; a threaded hole underneath for a tripod mount; a loop for a hand strap or shoulder strap; a removable battery; a lens cap, either built-in or detachable; tiny locking, hinged doors for the memory ...