What a dizzying array. It’s really difficult (especially in the short term) to tell the differences between models in our price range, or whether the improvements on the margin are worth it. We’ve gone through My Product Advisor’s choices, and end up with a range of recommendations varying in price by several hundred dollars. My Product Advisor has a good number of choices, but there are only a few features (outside of image/color quality) that make a difference:
[ul]
[li]Budget: $3-600[/li][li]Ability to change lenses[/li][li]Image stabilization (assuming that it actually works and is not just a gimmick) [/li][li]8–12 megapixels (I know the numbers are more like CPU megahertz now, as in not as good a comparison of yore. But we want something that will be able to produce images up to 11 x 17 without degradation.)[/li][li]Ability to save pictures in RAW or TIFF format[/li][li]Full size lens (by full size, I mean not one of those wee pocket or miniaturized lenses)[/li][li]Good optical zoom, or ability to get a decent zoom lens (though not necessarily paparazzi-like in magnitude)[/li][/ul]
Not sure what other bells and whistles are important/useful (hence a large part of my post!). For example, is “face recognition” really useful or more gimmicky? We certainly don’t need in-camera editing, and we’re fairly neutral about touch screen capability.
Mrs. Dvl is a graphic designer, (hence why in-camera editing isn’t needed) and has the sharper eye for colors. We use our office printers to make proofs and whatnot, so we can get the 11 x 17 printouts with ease. Both of us know photography basics and want to have manual control but assume at this level all of them will have that. Manual override aside, what will really make the difference is the picture quality of the auto setting.
So, there we are… any thoughts?