Digital cameras vary in size, price and features. The best way to get the model that’s right for you is to consider what you will use it for. If you are mainly taking photos of rooms and houses, you don’t necessarily need the most feature-laden model; on the other hand, the cheapest models may lack necessary items like flash or zoom that make it easier to make quality marketing materials. Keep these tips in mind:

• Higher resolution cameras are not always better; higher resolution models make photos that have very large file sizes. Oftentimes, these larger files are useless to everyday users who cannot email them or post them onto a web site. In addition, higher resolution images may not make any difference if you have an “average” resolution color printer.
• Look for cameras that can “switch” from high resolution to low resolution using a menu in the camera; you don’t want to waste time using photo editing software later, just to reduce the photo size so it can be emailed or posted onto a web site.
• Look for cameras that take photos in the JPG format. This is the most useful – print, email, web site, presentation – format and does not require any conversion by the user or the recipient (who may get it in an email attachment).
• Consider that many features like zoom and flash do not need to be “extravagant.” If you mostly take pictures of houses and inside rooms, then basic performance may be more than enough for most marketing needs.

4.0+ Megapixel Cameras
Choose these models if you need to do lots of printing, especially in larger scale formats; file sizes may be too large for most web/email work.

Print this page and use the following table to compare the standard  camera features and "what to look for" specifications with the "what you've found" specifications while shopping for your new camera.