5 things to consider when buying a digital camera

This article contains a quick checklist if you consider buying a new compact digital camera. If you’re looking to buy an SLR camera then don’t use this list as a guideline because you’re obviously looking for something else.

Important things to consider when buying a digital camera

1. Camera Resolution – make sure the new camera you’re considering has at least 4 Megapixels. This is plenty if you’re printing your pictures up to 5×7. If you want to print on 8×10 then you need at least 6 Megapixels.
2. Optical Viewfinder – this feater is less and less common. I believe it is very useful and can save your batteries when you need saving. Check out my previous post that describes the pros and cons of having an optical viewfinder.
3. System Clock Battery – many cheap cameras reset the date and time every time you take out the main camera battery. This means every time you place new (or recharged) batteries in your camera you have to set the date and time so that your pictures would have the right settings for later use.
4. Optical Zoom – if zooming is important for you (it’s very useful in most cases) then look for at least 6x because most compact cameras do not offer more than 3x.
5. Image Stabilization – this is a great feature to have so look for this one. Canon makes is very clear when one of their products has this feature. Other manufacturers are not very clear about it.

Essentials for organizing your digital photos

Here are the essential products and services I have come to rely on for many years to keep my media collection organized and safe. Even though these are affiliate links, I wholeheartedly recommend them.

Excellent Lightroom and Picasa alternative. If you need a cheaper and simpler photo manager then ACDSee Photo Studio for Mac (save 30% until May 24th) or ACDSee Pro for Windows (save $30 until May 24th) is my preferred solution for organizing all my media. It has a very fast browser, great image editing and it's simple to use.

If you do a lot of image editing like I do, I recommend using Adobe Lightroom Classic CC via the annual Adobe Creative Cloud subscription. Lightroom has best photo editing capabilities even though it comes with a steeper learning curve. If you do image editing, Adobe Lightroom is my favorite.

I recommend Backblaze Cloud Backup for affordable & reliable unlimited cloud backup. I have been using Backblaze for backing up all pictures & videos for more than 5 years now. All my invaluable digital memories are safe and secure. This is the best solution especially if you have a large quantity of media files.

Use a reliable & affordable external hard drive for backing up everything on your computer. It is absolutely essential for keeping all your memories backed up and safe.

Start organizing now using detailed, step-by-step instructions and videos:
Personal Coaching (closed) Independent Course Private Lessons
Reference book Basics book Picasa book

YOURS FREE! 10 crucial steps most people miss when organizing their digital photos

Most people want to just organize their digital pictures and ignore these crucial steps right at the beginning...when they are shooting and transferring their digital pictures. Then they wonder why they can't organize their digital photos! Avoid most people's mistakes and start on the right track!

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