The Digital Future - A Guide to Digital Camera Reviewing

The Differences

With such a vast number of digital cameras currently available, it is no wonder that each one seems to offer features others do not. The differences between cameras can be subtle or drastic, depending on the camera type and the specified price range. For the most part a digital camera can be found in nearly every price range, from below one hundred dollars to upwards of thousands of dollars. Many of the differences between these cameras are related to their target audience.

While determining which audience you fall into may be easy, picking a camera in that price range is a different story. Like many other fields of electronics, there is usually no one obvious winner in the digital camera battle. Each camera seems to have advantages that others do not have, ranging from storage options to specified image quality. Yes, choosing the best digital camera in a given price range can be very difficult indeed.

Luckily, there are objective ways of rating digital cameras and showing how one camera may or may not stand out from others in the same price range. Mainly, the differences in digital cameras can be broken down into six topics: the design, the battery, the interface, the storage method, the lens, the features, and the image quality.

We will follow the above layout in upcoming digital camera reviews in order to examine how each camera performs in each category. Some of the review topics are inherently subjective, such as the camera design. In these categories, we will reflect upon our experiences with each camera, attempting to represent the average user.

Other categories, however, may seem inherently subjective. Take image quality for example. Some items, such as pixel count are easily measured objectively: simply compare numbers. Other aspects of image quality, on the other hand, are simply dismissed as subjective. Color truth is one such example. It seems like a very subjective subject, yet there is no question that some cameras capture realistic colors better than others. As you will see in later sections, this seemingly subjective topic can be looked upon very objectively given the right equipment.

Now we will discuss what kind of information will be expressed in upcoming reviews as well as define some photographic terms. Let's begin going down the category list, beginning with design.