Must-know" digital camera info Rick Sammon For Photo Marketing Association International (PMAI) If you've been taking film pictures for years and are now thinking about jumping into digital photography, here are the key things you should consider. Total photography budget. Give yourself a total budget for your digital photography. In addition to a camera, you will need some accessories to complete your digital darkroom: memory cards for storing pictures, perhaps a docking station or memory card reader, an inkjet printer to make your own prints, inkjet ink and paper, photo-imaging software, and CDs on which to save your pictures. If you spend your entire photo budget on a camera, you man not be able to get all the accessories you want or need. Number of megapixels. Megapixels are the key to the quality of your pictures, generally speaking. One- and two-megapixel cameras take photos that are good for emailing, but not for high quality printing. Digital cameras come in all sizes, shapes and price ranges. Before you buy a camera, consider your total budget and your picture taking interests and needs. (Photo by Rick Sammon) Three-megapixel cameras are good if you want to make prints up to 8x10 inches. For larger prints, you'll need at least a four-megapixel camera. Zoom range. Low-end digital cameras come with either a fixed lens or a zoom with a limited range, usually around 2X. Those cameras are fine for around-the-house and similar snapshots. For sports and travel photography, you'll probably want a digital camera with at least a 4X optical zoom range. Many digital cameras also offer a digital zoom in addition to an optical zoom lens. Digital zooms are not zoom lenses. Rather, they magnify (enlarge) the center of the camera's sensor frame for a larger image. In doing so, grain (actually called "noise" in a digital camera) is increased. So, use a digital zoom sparing. If you want to get closer, do what the pros do who don't have a zoom lens: zoom with your feet; move closer to your subject! Shooting modes. All digital cameras offer an automatic mode. Some offer an automatic and a manual mode. And some models offer shooting modes for specific situations: sports, landscapes, close-up, portraiture and nighttime. These modes set the camera's aperture and shutter speed for optimum results. Ease of image transfer. Taking a picture is only the first step in digital photography. The next step is to get your pictures into your computer. There are several ways to do that. You can use a memory card reader that plugs into your computer's USB or Fire Wire port. Docking stations, which double as battery chargers, are another option. Some cameras, plug directly into a computer via Fire Wire ports for fast transfer of large files. And for digital camera owners whose recording media is a CD or memory stick, you can insert those CDs and sticks directly into a Sony computer. Oh yes, there is one more item that you may want to include in your new digital darkroom: more RAM (random access memory) for your computer. The more RAM you have the faster your memory-hungry programs will run. In addition, if you have a basic computer, you may, in fact, need more RAM to run your camera, photo-imaging and printer programs at the same time. Happy camera shopping - and happy picture taking. Rick Sammon is the author of The Complete Guide to Digital Photography, published by W. W. Norton