Digital photography

The early days of digital photography gave less than satisfying results. Low pixel count, strange colours and high cost. That wasn't that long ago, now however cameras are available that can be used easily and produce high quality pictures.

If you haven't got a digital camera yet, do you really need one? If you do slide shows for friends and family about your holidays or hobbies - probably not. You may end up sitting at your computer for thousands of hours - not too bad in winter but sometimes it feels like you should be out taking photos. If you have a collection of full frame or film type lenses (24mmx36mm), cameras are now on sale that are more reasonably priced. Still not cheap though.

What else would you need besides the camera? Memory cards, a 4GB card is a good start. Although you can have prints made directly from the camera or card, sooner or later you will need a computer to deal with your digital pictures. The buzz word for this is DAM, digital asset management. This just means how you deal with your pictures - downloading, editing, post processing, printing and archiving.

So now you need to make a choice, decide on how much you want to spend. If you have a very limited budget, photography may not be for you. It is easy to get swept up with this and spend far too much too quickly. Most photographers change equipment from their original purchase, so my advise would be to look at the popular mid priced cameras. If you check the internet photo shops, many have an option to show which are the best selling ones in your price range. These will be best supported and accessories and lenses more easily available.

All of this is very general of course, don't rush to buy, ask friends and research. When you have made your choice, buy at sales time and on special offers.