CameraFly

Cameras are confusing. Maybe you have one in your cell phone, you just point it at something, hit ‘take a picture’ and it takes a picture. Easy, peasy. No fiddling with knobs or buttons or zooming in and out. The pictures it takes are ok. Nothing that’s going in National Geographic, and they do look kind of blurry printed out or on a big screen. You’d like something small, something that takes good pictures and maybe movies but something that won’t break the bank and won’t break the first time you use it.

Your first digital camera should be simple, small and durable. If it’s too big, you won’t take it anywhere. If it’s too complicated, you’ll get frustrated and never use it. If it breaks, well, then it won’t work anymore. Thankfully manufacturers know that you’re out there, and they make cameras just for you. Cameras with only a few buttons and with ‘green box’ modes that take all the confusing things like aperture, shutter speed, ISO rating out of your hands and into the generally capable hands of the camera’s brain.

A few common things you might come across, and what they mean for you:

Wide Angle

We love wide angle cameras. A wide angle lens on a camera will let you capture more of what’s in front of you without moving backwards. They’re great for pictures indoors (where you can’t step back because there’s a wall in the way) or outdoors (the mountain isn’t getting any smaller). You can gauge how wide a cameras lens is by looking at the wide and telephoto (how far away it can zoom in) numbers of its lens. For instance, a 28-135mm lens is 28 millimeters on the wide end and 135 millimeters on the long/telephoto end. Those numbers are relative to an old 35 millimeter film camera, you remember the cameras with those little canisters of film? The size of the captured image, measured diagonally, of those old cameras was 35 millimeters. Cameras today capture images on a much smaller surface (called a sensor), so their lens zoom measurements are different (it’s a math ratio thing). Fortunately everyone still lists the 35mm film camera equivalent, so you can compare across cameras.

A wide millimeter number of less than 30 is what we consider a ‘wide angle’. You can search for just wide angle cameras (or just wide angle point and shoots of a specific price) over on the left.

Image Stabilization

People are shaky. You show me someone that can hold a camera perfectly steady and I’ll show you a professional cameraman. The rest of us inevitably move the camera around some when we take pictures. Image Stabilization (or Vibration Control, Anti-Shake and a wide variety of similar manufacturer terms) is technology in the camera or lens that tries to compensate for this. No Image Stabilization: blurry pictures. Image Stabilization: less blurry pictures.

LCD Screens & Viewfinders

On the back of all modern digital cameras is an LCD screen, like a tiny TV. It shows what the camera will capture along with some useful (or not) information about what it’s thinking. If the room is dark a little icon may blink telling you it’s going to use a flash. LCD screens have been getting larger and the common size now is around 2 1/2 inches to 3 inches. A large lcd screen is great if you have not-so-great eyesight.

Before digital cameras almost all cameras had viewfinders so you could see what the camera would capture. Hold the camera up to your eye, squint, and frame your shot. Some point and shoot cameras these days don’t have viewfinders, just large LCD screens. If you’re used to using a viewfinder and think you’d have trouble with a camera that didn’t have one, make sure you get a camera with a viewfinder.

The Body

Some cameras are made of heavy duty plastic, some camera bodies are made of metal, often they’re a mix of the two. Fortunately most cameras from major manufacturers are made to take some abuse, so you shouldn’t be too worried. Just don’t carry it in your pocket with your keys or pocketknife.

Memory & Accessories

If you get a non-Sony camera chances are that it’s going to use SDHC cards, a small card format about one inch by an inch and a half big. (Sonys use a format called Memory Stick which is slightly more expensive, but not by much.) They’re very common and are therefor low in price. In general memory prices drop by half every year and new doubled capacities come out to fill the higher price points. Right now an 8 or 16 gigabyte card is probably a good bet. That’ll be enough space to store hundreds of pictures and an hour or so of movies. Most camera manufacturers don’t include cards with their cameras, so make sure you pick up one.

A small tripod can be a good investment. In particular we love the little Gorillapods, small tripods with bendable legs that you can wrap around a pole or stand on uneven surfaces.

A case or bag can be a good idea if you want to carry the camera on your belt or worry it’ll be scratched in a purse. Manufacturers often make stylish cases for their cameras and there are plenty of other options.

Camera Shopping

Pay attention to reviews and overall ratings, that will tell you a lot about a camera. You probably want to start with something that has at least 4 stars and something that has reviews from people like you. Set a budget, good cameras can be had for less than $150, though a lot of the nicer models are around $200 or $250. Take a look at the back of the camera and see how many knobs and switches it has. If the button layout doesn’t look too confusing, great. Some cameras have touch screens these days, which I find people have more trouble with starting out than real physical buttons, so be aware that just because a camera has no buttons doesn’t mean it’ll be easy to use.

I would recommend that you pick a camera from a major manufacturer. Some cameras from companies you’ve never heard of can be cheap, but it’s much easier to get questions answered if a lot of people own the same camera, and the build quality is often a little better.

Specific Cameras for the Clueless We Like

The Canon Powershot A480
Though it doesn’t have a wide angle lens, it does come in only a hair over $100, doesn’t have too many buttons, uses AA batteries so there’s no charger to loose and has a metal body. It has a 4 star rating and the people who like it praise it as a great starter camera.


The Nikon Coolpix S570
Between $150 and $200, this camera adds a wide angle lens to the party. It’s very small, has a nice large 2.7 inch LCD screen and has an impressively long zoom range to get in close from far away.


The Samsung HZ15W
Around $250, this camera adds HD video in addition to a very wide angle lens and image stabilization. It has a large 3 inch LCD screen, and you can watch the HD movies you take on a large screen TV.

If you’d like to find more cameras, just click the boxes next to ‘Point and Shoot’, the price ranges you’re interested in, and the features you’re interested in on the left. Then hit ‘Find my Camera!’