You must first decide if you will carry the camera with you all the time; if this is your goal then you obviously must go with a compact; if you’re buying a camera that you will take out when you are specifically engaged in a photographic project you can choose a larger model.

When shopping for a good digital camera, the one specification that you can ignore is the number of pixels, which has almost nothing to do with image quality. A 3 MP camera will produce acceptable prints up to 8×10″ in size. The interesting question is not the number of pixels, but their quality.

Is your photo in focus? Have you captured the high contrast and vividness of a scene? Are the edges of objects rendered sharply? It is important to note that if these qualities are important to you then physically larger and more expensive cameras generally do a better job at satisfying these harder-to-quantify objectives than small and cheap cameras.

Ultra compact: perfect for slipping into a pocket or purse, but typically you will find that the controls and viewfinder are very crowded compact: generally what most people purchase, very practical and can generally fit in a pocket, somewhat easy to control

Creative compact: typically contain more features and options than the “compact” camera, sometimes as much as $200 more expensive; perfect for techno-junkies

SLR-like: chunky, easy to use controls, larger sensors and much better image quality in low light

SLR: usually large and cumbersome with the best image quality, best low-light capability, and best tool when you are going out specifically to take photos.

You can always do further research on the above models using the internet. If you prefer to not do further research on your own my current best recommendations for the typical user are the Fuji F30 (about $265; chunky but great for photos indoors without flash) and Olympus 720SW (about $280; waterproof and very compact)]

Storing your photos on CD and DVD is a very good option for sharing photos, particularly if you have a immensely huge photo collection. The downside, of course, is that your family and friends need to have a CD player or DVD player to view the content.

These days, CD burners and DVD burners are very affordable. A single CD-R stores 650MB and a DVD stores 4GB. That is an amazing amount of storage space for your photo collection.

There are various ways to share your digital photos with friends and family. Personally, I tend to burn my images to CD or DVD and pass them around. I also like uploading images to websites for all to see.

Just like film-based photography, you can share your pictures by having a hardcopy printout. All you need to do is get a good photo printer and some quality printing paper, then print away!

I usually print my photos from an inkjet printer (the Canon Pixma iP4000) using glossy photo paper. The prints I get are very high quality – you can’t discern them from those you print at photo kiosks.

Of course, if you don’t have a printer, you can still approach a photo kiosk to do the job, or even submit your images to an online photo print website. These websites usually print your pictures and are able to deliver them to your doorstep.

Make sure you do some shopping around first – digital photo printing services don’t come cheap.

Just like you when you used traditional cameras you needed enough rolls of film, you want to make sure you always have enough memory storage for your digital camera.

It’s terrible to be on a holiday taking great photos and suddenly realizing you’ve no memory space left. Here are some general guidelines for digital camera storage.

2 megapixel cameras – get at least a 64MB card
3 megapixel camera – get at least a 128MB card
4 megapixel camera – get at least a 256MB card
5 megapixel camera and above – get at least a 512MB or 1GB card

One of the most important things you need to know about your camera is how to control the flash. Personally, I don’t rely on the automatic flash that comes with the digital camera. Depending on the situation you are in you will need to switch off or switch on the flash.

For example, when taking outdoor photographs it is sometimes a good idea to turn on the flash to light up the subject, especially if he or she is in shadows. On the other hand, you might also want to turn off the flash when taking indoor shots. Oftentimes, using the flash indoors will result in unnatural skin color and harsh glare in your photos.

Read the cameras manual.!! Please note that some cameras don’t come with a printed manual, you must read an Acrobat file from the CD-ROM that came with the camera. Take your time and find all the controls and learn how to use them. Make sure you understand how to load batteries, plug it into your computer, and turn it on and off.

Also understand which buttons you don’t want to push. (I recently watched someone wonder aloud what one button did, so they pushed it — and watched their rechargeable battery fall into the Pacific Ocean.)

Typically speaking, the better the camera, the harder it will be to operate. Inexpensive digital cameras rarely support more than “point and shoot” technology. You point the camera, push the button, it takes a picture. The camera will try to auto-focus the image and adjust the exposure according to available light.

You will find that more expensive digital cameras will enable you to manually adjust focus, focal length, lighting, and countless other settings which will help you turn a good picture into a really bad picture — if you don’t read the manual.

Everyone knows the name Kodak and can identify it as the company that took cameras out of the hands of professionals and into the hands of everyday users. What you may not know is that Kodak is in financial trouble.

Why? Because those everyday users are now turning to digital cameras, leaving film-based cameras gathering dust in the closet. As the largest producer of film-based cameras, and photographic film, Kodak finds itself losing great gobs of money.

However, if you don’t know how to use it a digital camera won’t save you any money. Below are some pointers on how to use your camera, and take advantage of your Mac in the process.

You need a computer
While there are some cameras which allow you to view your photos on a TV, in practice a digital camera is pretty worthless without a computer. The best computer to have is a Macintosh with a USB port, which covers everything Apple has made since the iMac.

It will also help if the camera you purchased comes with Macintosh-compatible photo editing software. Mac OS X 10.1 automatically comes with software capable of downloading pictures directly from some cameras which means you may not need to load a thing.

If you plan on wearing the camera on your belt you may want to consider purchasing a small padded case. Lowe and Tamrac are generally the highest quality brands. The manufacturers’ own brand cases are generally the lowest quality.

Tamrac publishes a useful fit chart. Lowepro’s is a huge PDF.

Tamrac Ultra Compact
Tamrac T17
Tamrac Digital 1 (slimmer digital cameras, plus extra pocket)
Tamrac Digital 2 (compact cameras)
Tamrac Digital 3 (SLR-like)
If you have time and a good local shop, it is best to buy the case in person so that you can make sure you like the fit.

When purchasing your next camera you should look at a real digital SLR if you need any or all of the following features:

Reliability; bodies of the SLR almost never fail as opposed to point and shoot cameras which are built for light weight and low cost SLR cameras have large, bright, accurate optical viewfinder
SLR cameras produce good quality images in low natural light, e.g., indoors without blasting everything with flash
SLR’s have the ability to attach specialty lenses, e.g., very wide angle lenses for interiors, scenery, and architecture, or long telephoto lenses for sports photography

Accessories
Additional things you may want to purchase include a lens cleaning kit.

You will also definitely need at least one memory card. Most of the compact digital cameras take SD cards. If you are taking JPEG photos rather than RAW, you’ll be able to fit between 250 and 500 images in a 1 GB card.

1 GB SD cards: SanDisk
2 GB SD cards: SanDisk
4 GB SD cards: SanDisk (good for a long trip into a remote area where you can’t copy images to a computer)
It is much more convenient to use a single memory card for an entire project or trip rather than using multiple cards.