Gadgetory

expert service unbeatable price Best Buy even though smartphones tend to be the go-to camera for most people there is still a wide selection of cameras for those who want to get a little more out of their photos it all starts with point-and-shoot cameras these are slim basic cameras that shoot better than a smartphone but can still fit in your pocket cameras like the canon sx60 usually sport a 10 times zoom and are pretty good at capturing photos of fast-moving kids and sports you'll rarely spend more than 250 dollars on these models if it's any higher than that consider stepping up to the next category here you have compact zooms mega zooms and high performance compact cameras these will range you anywhere from three hundred and fifty to one thousand dollars depending on the feature set and the size compact mega zooms like the Canon Powershot SX 280 usually sport a longer lens and they give you more control over manual functions like exposure and even white balance they easily beat the image quality of a point-and-shoot camera then you have you mega zooms at that point forget about fitting anything into your pocket these cameras it's somewhere between point-and-shoots and DSLRs as far as image quality goes cameras like the Panasonic fz200 are great when you want to get close-up shots from nosebleed seats that's their primary use other than that the photo quality is pretty close to a point-and-shoot cameras enthusiast compacts like the Sony rx100 2 don't have a great zoom but their image quality easily beats any mega zoom a bigger sensor means higher quality photos and things to their more advanced lenses you get more of that blurry background or bouquet effect as it's called and even with all that tech and enthusiasts compact will still fit in your pocket some models like the sony alpha 6000 even have interchangeable lenses so you can replace the lens with a macro lens and get beautiful food photos that gets you a little bit closer to a DSLR without having to carry around a camera bag now for the photography enthusiast who wants professional looking photos there are DSLRs digital SLRs are fast they sport big sensors for crisp photos and you get all the manual functions you want you can certainly pick one up and start using it but for the newbie there's definitely a learning curve what's great is that once you outgrow the stock lens on your DSLR you can replace it with a new one and feel like you have an entirely new camera once you decide what kind of camera you want it's time to dig into the specs a little more but don't be distracted by megapixels and zoom those numbers don't really mean much the first thing you want to look for is the type of lens the camera has wide-angle lenses are great for landscapes and group shots whereas telephoto lenses are great for portraits and sports pay especially close attention to the aperture this is what allows your camera to perform well in low light plus it gives you that blurry background or bouquet effect that we talked about the bottom line the lower the number like 2.8 or 3.5 the better and finally look out for extras these aren't necessary but they can be helpful for instance there's GPS for geo-tagging your photos when you're on vacation and even Wi-Fi so you can upload your photos without ever connecting your camera to the computer for more tips on buying digital cameras head on over to cnet.com slash cameras for CNET I'm Sharon Profis you