If you want to buy the best digital camera for you, that doesn’t cost much but still does everything you need from it, first find out what you’ll be using it for. To help you, take a look at the profiles below and see if you belong to one of them.

The snapshooter will be the one that needs photos that he can send to family and friends, upload online or print them in small photos. His camera will be very easy to use, so that anyone in the family can take photos with it, and the photos will be printed on a printer that is cheap.

While the resolution of the camera is not that important, the controls must be automatic, it needs to have some kind of storage media that can be changed, and the price shouldn’t be over $300. Taking some low quality videos with sound is a plus.

With digital cameras, it’s generally megapixels. I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again – “pay no attention to the megapixel ratings of any camera you look at”. It just doesn’t matter anymore. They pretty much all have 6MP or over, and that’s plenty for 90% of all photographers.

To be well-acquainted with the digital cameras available in the market, better look for a category chart. This chart lists down models and brands for different types of photographers. For example, a beginner in photography should consider getting Canon’s XS, 1000D, A650 IS, A720 or A590 IS; or Fujifilm’s F100fd, F60fd, S8100fd, A1000fd; or Nikon’s D60, P5100, P5000.

Basically, the larger the better. Cameras that try to squeeze too many megapixels onto a small image sensor, generally end up degrading the image quality with too much image noise. In other words, if I was looking at a 10 megapixel camera vs a 8 megapixel camera and both had the same image sensor size, I’d pick the 8megapixel camera in a heart beat. Your bound to get much less image noise in your pictures, especially at the higher ISO settings.

Know the kind of photography you would like to get into. So be sure to decide on this mater before getting into the hunt.

If you want to take close-up pictures of things like insects and flowers, the best digital camera for you would be the one that allows you to shoot for macrophotography. If you are still clueless on what type of photography you like, better gather all the pictures you have taken in the past. You’re sure to find their unifying theme.

This type of buyer will look at the price first, so the camera should be under $200. The photos will probably be uploaded on the Internet, printed small or sent to family and friends. It needs to be a camera that is easy to use and will work for at least 2-3 years.