The question of what is the best digital camera to buy, is an easy question to answer. The short answer is the camera that allows you to take the best picture possible, while staying within your budget. Simple enough yes, but the answer also begs several other questions. How do you take pictures? And secondly, what's the best camera for the way you take pictures?
Amongst professional and semi professional photographers you'll find many heated debates about different camera makes, models, and designs. Where you will find no argument whatsoever, is in the statement that "The single most important factor in determining the quality of your photographs, is the abilities and styles of the person taking the picture". In other words, the camera is secondary, you the photographer are what really matters in the whole process.
So, let's then focus on determining how to get the best camera for you into your hands. How do we do that? First and most importantly you need to get off the internet ;) What you should be doing is trying out cameras with your own bare hands. Play with the myriad array of controls, sliders, and buttons on the camera. Every single one of them. If it's not obvious what they mean, then ask. Try them all out. Are they intuitive and easy to use? Are they single or multi purpose. Single purpose buttons control only one function. I prefer single, as your more likely to remember what they're for in the heat of the moment, or a year after you've bought the camera and have no idea where the manual is.
Next, try navigating through the cameras menu system. This once again, should be easy and intuitive. Junior at his cutest moment, won't wait for you to flip through the manual for a specific setting. The picture and moment will be lost. An ergonomically intelligent camera should have all the major settings controlled by physical buttons or knobs. Not buried within three levels of menu selections.
Finally take as many pictures with the cameras on your short list as possible. Indoor pictures, outdoor pictures, portrait pictures, landscape pictures, macro pictures. Run the whole gamut!
If the store is flexible, see if you can take a demo home for a few days to try out. The more expensive the camera, the more likely they'll allow this. If not, just make sure the store has a good return policy (no restocking fee), buy the camera, take it home, try it out, and then return it. After you've done this with a few cameras (maybe a few stores), you should have a nice collection of images to compare.
What Is The Best Digital Camera To Buy?
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