Specialists unanimously started with the obvious: everything depends on what you will use your digital camera for.
In this matter (excluding professionals and speaking only about amateurs), we very roughly identified people who simply take photos for a family album, copy images to a PC and occasionally print them (no larger than A4 format). We (also very roughly) called these people “users.” The other group is those who intend, even at an amateur level, to engage in photographic art, want to make photographs that are interesting not only to themselves, print them in large formats (up to A3), bring them to exhibitions, and so on. We conditionally called them “artists.”
Without delving into technical details yet, let us say right away: specialists advise paying attention to the manufacturer. Among the companies, there are those that have long been engaged in the production of cameras, and those that have only recently joined this process. The former include well-known brands with traditions: Canon, Nikon, Olympus, Minolta, and Pentax. The latter include well-known brands of consumer electronics manufacturers. This is an important piece of advice for everyone, but it is especially important for “artists.”
As for the user interface, manufacturers usually try to balance the number of buttons and the complexity of the user menu. If the menu is complex, there should be an easily accessible branch of it where the most important things are collected. This is how the menus of many Nikon and Olympus cameras are designed. Also, many cameras allow you to edit the menu so that various functions can be placed there. This is of interest to “artists,” but not to “users.”
Moving on to technical specifications. Here, according to Sergei Shcherbakov, first of all you need to look at the quality of the lens, that is, the optics. Dmitry Rudakov claims that all lenses in this category of cameras are practically the same. Delving into this topic is useless, since it will not even fit into 10 articles; we will limit ourselves to general remarks.
If you are an “artist,” it is better not to take plastic lenses; they do not give any acceptable result, so you should immediately focus your attention on glass. For “users,” on the contrary, the difference between glass and plastic is insignificant. It is good if the lens has the ability to optically zoom the image (do not confuse it with digital zoom, which does not improve the image but simply stretches it using a special algorithm). Optical zoom (or transfocator) is very convenient, for example, in cases where you need to take a close-up shot. Simply by zooming in on the image, you can get rid of the need to physically approach the subject. Threefold or fourfold transfocator zoom is quite acceptable. According to Dmitry Rudakov, you should not chase the versatility of a lens, since versatility is always a compromise between convenience and quality.
By the way, you should pay attention to the fact that different cameras require different types of lenses. This is due to the fact that many manufacturers make their cameras incompatible with lenses from other companies. Therefore, Canon lenses will not fit a Nikon camera and vice versa.
It is also important to pay attention to the matrix. First of all, its resolution. In this matter, you should not get carried away with large megapixels. For “artists,” a 5-megapixel camera is quite suitable; for “users” who need to print photos of A4 size and smaller, 3-4 megapixels are enough. For printing 10x15 cm photos, a 2-megapixel camera is sufficient, but such camera models are already outdated and are simply hard to find in stores.
Sensors in matrices come in two types: CMOS and CCD (CMOS and CCD). The difference between the sensors is generally insignificant, although it does affect, in particular, power consumption.
In addition to resolution and sensor, the matrix has several other important characteristics: dynamic range, sensitivity, noise level (interference in the image), and others.
Dynamic range is the number of steps in contrast difference that a camera can capture. Amateurs have only one way to find out the dynamic range of a new camera compared to others: you will have to take a picture of the same scene with different cameras. As a rule, such tests are carried out by specialized publications. Sensitivity (ISO): the higher it is, the more noise, but high sensitivity is useful for shooting in low-light conditions. “Artists” should buy a camera with a large sensitivity range and, at the same time, look at how “noisy” the image is at maximum sensitivity.
“Artists” should also pay attention to the presence of manual settings for shutter speed and aperture. “Users” should not pay attention to such things; they will not use them anyway – due to natural laziness.
Far from the last place in terms of importance in obtaining the result is occupied by the camera processor. It significantly affects the quality of the picture and the shooting speed. Usually, cameras can record the result in JPEG formats (sometimes RAW and TIFF). The RAW format, and the possibility of its support is important for “artists,” fully stores frame information (everything that the camera captured during shooting without compression), thereby providing the opportunity to influence the final result more, but a file in this format takes up more space. TIFF is a format without compression and loss of information (it is this modification that is used in cameras), and JPEG is with high compression, but also with loss of information. A RAW file of the same frame is larger than JPEG, but smaller than TIFF. JPEG was intended precisely as a compression format in which part of the data is lost, but a significant gain in volume is achieved. In fact, JPEG losses are practically invisible to the eye (if the quality/file size coefficient is appropriate). So, specialists say, “users” will be quite fine with JPEG, while photo artists need RAW.
The presence of a display for viewing the result seconds after shooting at one time played a major role in the transition from film to digital. The display should be as large as possible and should also be capable of reproducing the image in bright light.
For "artists", it is desirable to be able to view the image histogram (a diagram where the horizontal axis shows shades of gray from 0 (black) to 255 (white), and the vertical axis shows the number of points of the corresponding shade in the image – the higher the column, the more points of that shade of gray are contained in the photograph).
As for power supply, there are two options: dedicated rechargeable batteries (Li-Ion and others) with a long charging time, as well as ordinary AA batteries. A digital camera, as a rule, consumes a lot, and AA batteries (and among non-professional cameras there are plenty of battery-powered options) run out very quickly. In some unsuccessful models, they last only 15-20 shots.
Dedicated rechargeable batteries have a larger capacity, but also cost more. "Artists", perhaps, should opt for rechargeable batteries with many adapters for chargers for various outlets, while "users" – still on AA batteries, which can be bought at any kiosk anywhere in the world.
Regarding various exotic features. Let us take "image stabilization" as an example – experts claim that it is only needed for cameras with a long-focus lens (more than 300 mm). If a camera does not have such a lens, but it does have an image stabilization function, then it is most likely a marketing ploy.
And finally, about market trends, they are quite simple: the quality of cameras is increasing, prices are decreasing. Sergei Shcherbakov gave the following example: now in the capital for $500 you can buy a new professional camera, and for $600 - an amateur and not very effective one. Dmitry Rudakov, on the contrary, believes that the equipment that can be called "professional" does not fall into this price category at all.
The market is the market, but the main thing when buying a camera, as in many other things, is your firm confidence in your desire to engage in the chosen activity.