Due to the rapid developing digital technology and the wide voairaty of digital cameras, choosing the right one can be quite a chalange.

Your decision for choosing a digital camera should be a balance between your needs and your budget.

Understanding what a digital camera is, what it does and how it does it, is a good start.

Just like the good old regular cameras that use film, digital cameras also take pictures by focusing the light passing through the lens onto a patch of light-sensitive medium.
In a digital camera the film has been replaced by a chip called a CCD. The CCD reacts to the light; the light waves are then converted into digital signals that can be stored.

Some digital cameras can take short movies that can be viewed on the computer or a TV screen.

In order to use a digital camera you do not need to have a computer. Some digital can link directly to a printer and some save to a floppy disk which can be taken to a Kodak booth for printing. However, to get the most out of your camera, you need a computer.

Decide what you're going to be using your digital camera for.

If you buy something that's cheap, but doesn't have the features that you need, you'll have wasted your money.

One that has hundreds of features that you're not going to use will cost far more than necessary.

Choose a camera that is a little bit more advanced than you think you'll need, and one that can upgrade easily.

Learn what the important parts of a digital camera are.

Remember that the most important factor of a digital camera is image quality.

Read consumer reports and magazine reviews especially the ones that compare the latest cameras.

The Important parts of a digital camera.

Shutter release
Hot shoe
Red-eye reduction
Optical viewfinder lens
CCD

Memory card
Batteries
Optical viewfinder
LCD display
Lens barrel