Choosing a Digital Camera can be like looking for a needle in a haystack, with so many options available. Here are some useful points to consider to better enable making the right choice.

Movie Camera or Still.

It may sound obvious, but first consider the style of pictures you are going to use most. Some stills camera’s offer motion capture, but it’s often better to elect buying a movie camera which offers the choice to save still images, if you think motion pictures is going to occupy your attention.

Mega Pixels.

In essence, the higher the number of Mega Pixels (MP) you choose, the greater detail your images will be. It makes sense therefore to get the highest you can afford.

High Definition.

There’s little doubt High Definition is the shape of things to come, and the greater detail. So exactly why should you even consider non HD? It’s still possible to get great images non HD, and the price of HD may become more affordable later , following the technology trend of greater capacity for less money as time goes on. It is possible to get higher Mega Pixel camera with greater zoom facility more within your budget.

Zoom; Optical or Digital.

Which brings us on to zoom. Again, your style of photography will determine just how important zoom is to you. Example, if you are into sports photography, or even fashion parades, zoom is a factor to consider. Just what is the difference between Optical Zoom and Digital zoom? In a nutshell, optical is far superior image quality. The lens is sometimes bulkier, but the same number of pixels are captured when the image is magnified. The only thing that changes is which rays of light are projected onto the sensor to form those pixels. Digital zoom works by scaling up the pixels in the final image after it is captured. This enables you to zoom after the picture is taken, but with far less detailed images than optical.

Digital Camera’s have both types of zoom facility. If optical is 5x digital is 12x it’s possible to combine the two for a total zoom of 12×5. But again, don’t think the digital zoom will give anything like the same quality. If zoom is a major factor, it makes better sense to buy the highest optical zoom you can afford.

Image Stability.

Nothing is more annoying in movie camera’s than a shaking lens. Look to see if the camera you are considering has image stabilization. Even so, it always makes sense to use an old fashioned tripod for filming. No serious photographer can afford to be without one.

Memory.

Finally, the question of how to store your images, or movies. When buying a camera, also consider an SD card, even if the camera has built in hard drive for storage.

Tags: Digital Camera’s, Camera Guide, Camcorders, HD Camera Guide

If there is a clock on the wall where you work, beware if it’s this wireless, high quality colour spy camera..It has it’s own built in transmitter able to transmit video pictures up to 500 feet to a video receiver.

The camera is powered by a 9 volt PP3 battery, and includes the video receiver and video phono cables.

Buy at Active Spy Shop

Tags: Spy Cam, Big Brother

The Sanyo Xacti HD700 widescreen camcorder is touted by the company as the smallest HD camcorder in the world. It records 7.1MP digital stills on an SD memory card, and has an ISO 3200, enabling low light image and video capture.

Other features include;

• 5x Optical zoom
• 12x Digital Zoom
• 60x combined zoom range

“Face Chasing” feature, which detects peoples faces, enabling more detailed image capture by focusing on the face not the background.

On the whole, a serious contender for the HD Camcorder market.

Availability; QVC Uk at £362.76 + delivery.

This mobile phone from Sony features an MP3 player, you can download tracks from your PC, or the internet. Also a 2.0 megapixel camera, with 4x digital zoom. Don’t expect too much from the zoom though, focus is nearly always inaccurate when using the zoom, particulary in low light.

Also there is video capture, for easy transfer to PC. The files are .3gp format, which can be played with Quicktime. Picture size is small, as one would expect from such a tiny camera, and again, the zoom is very poor, indoors quality also suffers.

Great for long train journeys, this phone is packed with features to keep you entertained, like headphone socket for digital music, FM  radio, video, internet browsing, and e-mailing, if your budget can go that far. It comes with 512MB memory stick, talk time 9 hours and standby for 16 days before recharging.

This phone is pay as you go, with top ups from only £5.00 from Orange.

This handy spy camera available at Eyetek is great for filming secret meetings, concerts (subject to lighting conditions) interviews. It can be filmed directly onto a portable video recorder. The camera itself is not visible to the onlooker, who may be excused for thinking it is a conventional tie!