David Pogue's Digital Photography: The Missing Manual

Chapter 1. Camera Kinds

Year after year, the digital camera is one of the hottest-selling products on the face of the earth. Every year, 15 million people snap them up, spend $42 billion in the process, and take 50 billion photos with them.

All that popularity is good, because it means the marketplace is crowded. Competition means lower prices, nicer features, and better cameras.

But it's also bad, because all those hundreds of models make camera shopping much more complicated. And not to depress you or anything, but camera companies generally update their lineups twice a year (in October and February). Each generation offers better features, improved resolution, and lower prices. That's right: Whatever camera you buy today will be obsolete—well, at least no longer sold—in about six months.

On top of all that, the features and specs that should matter when you shop for a camera usually aren't easy to figure out. (Just try, for example, to find out the sensor size for a camera you're considering; it's not on the box and not in the brochure.) Meanwhile, the camera makers and camera stores often flog features and specs that don't matter at all, like the number of megapixels the camera has. (Yes, that's right. Read Chapter 2 to find out why having a lot of megapixels is irrelevant—or even a bad thing.)

The major players include companies like Canon, Nikon, Sony, Kodak, Panasonic, Olympus, HP, Casio, and Fujifilm. Each company offers a variety of models and a prices to compete for your dollars. ...