How To Compare Digital Camera Prices

Digital camera prices have been constantly dropping whilst the quality and complexity of the digital cameras has been rising rapidly. People who used to only dream of owning a digital camera because of the excessive digital camera prices may now be able to afford much better cameras than they realize. In fact, digital camera prices have changed so dramatically that a 5- or 6-megapixel point-and-shoot digital camera has dropped below what a 4-megapixel camera was selling for less than a year ago.

Digital camera prices of $200-$300 are now common for good point-and-shoot digital cameras that come with an image resolution of up to 5 mega pixels and a 3X optical zoom lens. It is important to recognize what the minimum features are to expect for this range of digital camera prices. Digital camera prices between $200 and $300 should include:

* 1.3 frames per second shooting capability

* 10 to 20 scene modes

* built-in flash

* lens openings from f2.8 to f4.8

* optical viewfinder and an LCD of 1.5 to 2 inches

* optical zoom lens with a range equivalent to that of a 35-115mm lens

* rechargeable batteries

* shutter speeds of 4 seconds to 1/2000 second

* solid plastic or metal housing

* video clip capture at 320 by 240 resolution with audio

Digital camera prices can vary and it is essential to know what the most useful features are. Obviously you want to take good pictures but don’t want to pay the inflated digital camera prices that the high-end cameras have. However, your priority should be to assess which features are the most important to enable you to take the best pictures. The higher the numbers of megapixels that the cameras have, the higher the digital camera prices are but this does not necessarily guarantee better pictures.

One of the most useful features to look for in the $200-$300 range of digital camera prices for point-and-shoot picture taking is scene modes. Digital camera prices are not affected very much by having scene modes but these allow an amateur photographer to take shots such as a fireworks display and sunsets without knowing how to adjust the camera settings manually. The majority of the better digital cameras within the $200-$300 range of digital camera prices have scene mode selections available. Another feature of cameras within the $200-$300 range of digital camera prices is that they are compact and will fit in a jacket pocket.

by: Steve Gargin

5 Things You Can Do With Flash Memory

Got flash memory cards? They aren’t only for your digital camera. Probably the coolest yet overlooked ways to use your flash memory card is as floppy drive replacement. Think about it, a flash memory card is really a form of storage disk.

Most notebook computers today don’t come with a floppy drive anymore. I’ve personally been in situations where I needed to share a file with someone and haven’t been able to because they handed me a floppy disk.

If you already own a card or a digital camera, chances are you already have the necessary equipment to read the card and transfer files to and from them. If you don’t it’s easy. Get yourself a flash memory card reader – they are so inexpensive these days you can even pick one up free after rebate if you watch the deals. Hookup it up to your computer and pop in the card. It will show up on your computer as a new drive. When you’re ready to save data to it, just drag and drop. It’s no different than a regular floppy or hard drive. Once you see in this light there is a whole bunch of things you can use your flash memory card for and here are 5 ideas for you.

1. Use as a greeting card. Hey there’s always an occasion around the corner. If you’re already thinking of sending a CD greeting card – use your flash memory card instead. With the large storage sizes you can afford to have multimedia in your ecards too and when that person gets tired of it, the card itself is a gift for their computing convenience. As if that wasn’t enough, you can probably get by with less postage too.

2. Use as media storage. One of the best things about flash memory cards is how much its small physical size can pack in. With memory sizes up to several Gigabytes, you could use it to store your media like video clips, picture clips, audio files and just about any downloadable content. Its small size also makes it highly portable without taking up valuable space on your notebook computer hard drive.

3. Sharing files or transferring files from one computer to another. If you need to do this often, here’s a quick tip. Carry with you a USB card reader. Many of them are very compact and no heavier than your cell phone. Doing this has advantages over carrying a flash memory drive. Flash memory cards are smaller and a tiny catalog of cards can offer you much more memory than a flash drive. Better carry two things than a bunch of drives.

4. Build yourself an ebook library. Are you a book worm? One tiny flash memory card can store a lot of ebooks since most text based files are smaller than media files. You can store whole libraries of ebooks in various topics either on one card or dedicate one for each topic you are interested in. Again, they are easy to share and very portable – you’ll never run out of reading material again even when on the road.

5. Run small software from it. Yes, there are tiny software that don’t need to be installed and can run from the card itself. This is particularly helpful when you’re using someone else’s computer. Now you can carry your software with you too.

Now that you know – gather up those flash memory cards and start using them. Just because your new camera isn’t compatible with it doesn’t mean you should let it go to waste and the best part is, you won’t have to worry about obsolete cards anymore.