Buying a Digital Camera South Carolina

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Originally published at Internet.com

It seems like every few months the big-name digital camera manufacturers - Canon, Kodak, Sony, Nikon and Olympus - come out with new models touting some new improvement or must-have feature. With so many brands, models, megapixels and features to choose from, how is a small business owner to pick the right digital camera?

SmallBusinessComputing.com talked to two digital camera experts and several small business owners to get the lowdown on what you need to consider when purchasing a new digital camera - or adding one to an existing inventory. We've also included a handy checklist to help prioritize the features you want, which you can print, clip and take shopping.

Why Buy a Digital Camera?
Many small businesses - from insurance adjusters, realtors, appraisers and lawyers to landscapers, contractors and artists, just to name a few - can benefit from having a digital camera on hand.

"Photography is one of the key components to the whole eBay set up," says Aditi Goswami, an eBay PowerSeller and a FoundValue specialist who helps others sell their stuff on eBay. "The picture is everything to your auction. If you have a bad picture, no matter how good a product you are offering, you're not going to get as many hits as you possibly could with a good picture."

Presenting good pictures on the Web, as well as in advertising and brochures, is equally critical for real estate agents trying to sell houses.

"Prospective clients, either listing their house or wanting to buy, always want to have pictures," says Carol MacDonald, advertising coordinator for Realty Seven, an independent real estate firm in Connecticut. "People are visual. On the Web, if there's a listing for a house and there's no picture, people aren't going to get excited. So it's important."

Indeed, whether you are selling on eBay or selling houses, if your business depends on putting pictures on the Web, you need a digital camera.

And what exactly is a digital camera? As defined by Webopedia:
A digital camera is a camera thatÂ…stores images digitally rather than recording them on film. Once a picture has been taken, it can be downloaded to a computer system, and then manipulated with a graphics program and printed. Unlike film photographs, which have an almost infinite resolution, digital photos are limited by the amount of memory in the camera, the resolution of the digitizing mechanism, and, finally, by the resolution of the final output device (i.e., your printer).

In other words, a digital camera is great for taking pictures you can manipulate with some software on your computer and then uploading onto the Web (think eBay - or any Web site where pictures are essential), not as great for printing gorgeous, high-resolution 8- x 10-inch or larger pictures, though there are plenty of high-end digital cameras that will allow you to do that, for a price.

What is a Megapixel Anyway?
Pixels are dots or tiny elements that make up a digital picture. A megapixel equals one million pixels. Cameras come in a range of megapixels and, the theory goes, the more megapixels your camera has, the better - or sharper - your picture will be. In general, it's a pretty good theory. However, the reality is somewhat different, depending on how - and where - you plan to use pictures.

If you're mainly throwing pictures up on the Web, "megapixels don't really mean a whole lot, because the images being placed on the Web are going to be low-resolution, 72 dpi (dots per inch), and about 300 or 500 pixels in width," says Chuck Chaney, a professional photographer who manages Calumet Photographic's Santa Barbara, Calif.-based store.

Where megapixels comme into play, says Chaney, is when your main goal is to print pictures larger than 4-x-6 inches. For this, you should probably consider a higher-end digital camera or a regular 35-millimeter film camera.

However, "for eBay, your basic 3.2 megapixel digital camera is fine," says Goswami, who often posts upward of 100 pictures per week on the auction site and is happy with her three-year-old, 3.2 megapixel Canon PowerShot S30.

Indeed, even Kodak digital camera guru Phil Scott, the general manager of digital capture for the Americas region, admits "if someone is just using their digital camera for eBay, they probably don't need a camera with a lot of megapixels. But if you want to be able to crop that image, you do need more megapixels, because more megapixels allows you to crop pictures down further."

More megapixels can also be helpful if you want your print images to be as sharp as possible. Realty Seven uses a high-end, 5.3 megapixel Konica Minolta DiMAGE A1 so they can just as easily post pictures on the Web as print them in four-color brochures and sales sheets.

Which Features Do I Really Need?
Before you begin evaluating cameras, make a checklist (or use ours) of what you really need - or think you need - in a digital camera. Next prioritize. Then go to your local high-end camera or electronics store, present your requirements to a (hopefully) knowledgeable salesperson and try out some different models.

Here are a few basic questions to consider:

Are you mostly taking up-close pictures that require lots of detail, such as pictures of jewelry or other small objects to sell on eBay or your own Web site?
While all cameras let you take close ups (that's what that little flower icon means), how you access that option can vary. So if you're going to be doing a lot of close-up work, look for a camera with an easy-to-use close-up feature.

Feature

Very
Important

Somewhat
Important

Not
Important

High optical zoom
(4x or greater)

Large LCD (greater
than one inch)

Wide-angle lens

Pocketsize or
lightweight