A digital camera or digicam for short is a camera that takes video or still photographs, or both, digitally by recording images on a lightsensitive sensor. Many compact digital still cameras can record sound and moving video as well as still photograph. In the Western market, digital cameras outsell their ;mm film counterparts.

Hi Digital cameras come in many sizes, colors, brands, zooms, resolutions, playbacks, etc. There are so many features and qualities that are being placed in the devices that buyers especially first timers become overwhelmed. This is even without including the various advertisements and different ratings that are used to promote these products. Before you buy digital camera, it is important to determine what kind of pictures you want to take with it. If you are a digital photography enthusiast, any digital camera will not just do.

You have to look for features that can support the zooming you need, the resolution, etc. This is a very important question any person who intends to buy digital camera should ask. Because no matter what your needs and wants are for the device, your financial resource will play a huge part in dictating the type of digital camera you will buy. When you buy digital camera, sometimes the spending does not end there. You also have to consider the capacity and the power of the computer and the printer you will be hooking your camera with for your editing and printing needs. Editing software are already included when you buy digital camera but other devices arent. After answering these 3 questions, the second set of information you need to know before you buy digital camera are the features that you need in the device. Before you buy digital camera, check first its capacity to produce high quality photo images. The number of pixels indicated determines resolution. The more number of pixels, the higher the resolution which can make photos to be enlarged without losing image quality. Digital cameras need memory cards for picture storage. This allows you to change full memory cards conveniently while shooting your pictures. It is essential for you to feel comfortable holding your digital camera while shooting.

So, before you buy digital camera, it good to test and check if you are comfortable holding it and using it. Consider where the buttons are located and how they are spaced out and see also if you feel comfortable using the viewfinder.

Digital cameras use up batteries fast and batteries are expensive. Before you buy digital camera, consider if the cameras batteries are rechargeable. This way you can recharge them. Take also into consideration an AC adapter when you buy digital camera.

The LCD is a special consideration you have to look into when you buy a digital camera. This is a small screen located at the back of a digital camera that allows you to preview the pictures you took. This has to be considered when you buy digital camera because it uses up a lot of battery power. Special features that will suit your needs should be thought about, too before you buy digital camera. If you want your camera to have good zooming, you can opt for those with optical zoom lenses. Other features such as remote control, tripods, etc. E45 means it could be the sensors or the internal memory. 00, they did not say if it was the sensors or the internal memory. My wife is a house wife and saves her monies here and there when she baby sits. It did a great job until it would start fomatting the sim card after down loading the pictures on its own. After reading all the problems everyone has had, I guess I am done with this camera. It was a very good product while it lasted but I will not purchase a Kodak again and I will make people aware of this site. Camera worked well until I went to Las Vegas Camera just went out with the 45 message. After reading the reviews I will purchase a diffrent camera. E45 club but here I am. Same sort of offer from Kodak for the upgrade and not as lucky as HAPPY ENDING was.

Will upgrade to the V603 and hope that this doesnt repeat with that one. First couple of years it was great, then strange things started happening. First, it decided when to work, sometime it wouldnt acknowledge the card, this started happening more and more frequently. The final straw was while we were on vacation, I would turn it on and it immediately turned itself off. That was it for the camera. Kodak should do something for its customers while it still has them. Another black screen on this camera. 50 to Kodak to fix the lens problem.

Now a year later, the screen stays black. Never dropped it, got it wet, anything.

Dont waste your money on this lousy product when other makes are far more reliable. Dont buy this camera, or any Kodak product for that matter. They dont stand behind it. Worked great for the first nine months and got the lense jam during warranty.

Kodak fixed it under warranty and it worked until halfway through our Costa Rica vacation after a little more than two more years.

E45 and seeing these feedbacks Ill be heading out to another brand.

Same story as many others. Never had any problems before that. They do not support or repair the LS443 any longer, but would upgrade it for a small charge. 95 shippint plus local tax.

If I have to ever buy another one though, it wont be from Kodak. Enjoyed using the camera, found camera easy to use but took average photos, found night shots a little on the dark side. The docking station and program was easy to use,u ntil we went on holidays Feb 2006 and the LCD black screen occurred, couldnt take anymore photos. We never got it wet, dropped same or in anyway damaged it, it just quit working.

LS443 has some major problems that Kodak will not stand behind, and we will never recommend their product to anyone. Wouldnt you know mine got the error on the date I had my baby. We have no pictures of the arrival of our daughter. Lens jammed, my fault for crrying around in pants pocket activating lens in closed environment. Kodak turned it around gratis in a week and upgraded the selection wheel with alock so you can not activate camera by accident. Since then I have jammed the joystick toggle, limiting some camera features, but it still performs most functions.

Loved the ease and picture quality of ls443 while it lasted. But, the lens thing occured.

00 is not an outrageous price for a replacement product. However, Kodak should not be rewarded for not supporting a product that should have been replaced for free. Im 14 and ive brought this camera to school since grade 6, and now im in grade 9. Best solution to my problem i belive was to buy a Canon S21S. Wallet is a bit lighter but the problem went away. My photo quality also improved.

During 2 years I was extremely satisfied with it. The combination of good picture quality with easy to handle is not easy to be found. It is well known to Kodak and therefore they would fix it free of charge. All the buyers of this camera should be asked to return the cameras and be given a similar model in substitution. It is not much to ask from a worldwide known manufacturer, that knows that one of their products has a construction fault, to replace the product by a similar one. 150 with taxes, shipping, etc.

Should have found this website first to find out it wasnt just my camera. LS443 will also end up being a disposable. LS443 comes with will put my old computer over the edge and I will ultimately have to spend alot more for a new computer and a so so camera. 84th bd party, it simply stopped recording pictures.

Everything works: flash, menu LCD, even LCD date when I take a picture but only a black LCD where the picture should be. Called Kodak and was told they would replace with LS743, dock, cables, software n 1 yr.

00 if I return LS443 to them. Minolta F5 this time which has 5 megapixel, 12X optical zoom, hot shoe capability as well as anti shake.

00 towards the purchase of this camera except I would rather have spent the money with Kodak. 7590 but it did not offer anti shake or hot shoe capability. From all my research, if you offer more than 8X zoom a camera needs anti shake for the best picture quality. Kodak is an American institution but they are short changing the consumer and if they continue shortchanging us, Kodak will disappear.

It righted itself once but just now it has stuck again and I think there is no other action than bin it. The pictures I have taken over the 2 year period have been very expensive ones. As other viewers have stated, this is an easy camera to use as a beginner. Unfortunately, it stopped displaying pictures we were taking as we stood in front of the White House. Got back home and it had truly stopped taking pictures as the display showed. The LS 443 was my first digital camera way back then. Its very user friendly and not a battery eater. Its a bit slow but the images are acceptably sharp and clear if one doesnt try to push things.

One drawback is there was no printer dock for it.

Kodak now but I still use the LS 443 from time to time. Overall it was worth the price. There is no repair available for the LS443. Ive had my LS443 for almost 2 years. Kodak didnt offer much as far as backing up there product.

400, it only worked for 2 years, and Kodak will no longer fix the camera. On top of that, I will have to buy a new dock, because my old one wont work with the LS743.

Im very disappointed with Kodaks customer service policies. After doing some research, this seems to be a common problem. Most people who have used a 35mm camera or an APS camera are aware of only optical zoom. Digital zoom is an invention of digital video cameras. It is not uncommon to see digital videocams with 300x digital zoom. For our purpose, digital zoom is not really zoom, in the strictest definition of the term. What digital zoom does is enlarge a portion of the image, thus simulating optical zoom. In other words, the camera crops a portion of the image and then enlarges it back to size.

In so doing, you lose image quality. If youve been regularly using digital zoom and wondered why your pictures did not look that great, now you know. So, as far as digital zoom is concerned, you can do it in camera or you can do it afterwards in an image editing software. Any cropping and enlarging can be done in an image editing software, such as Photoshop. So, when a digital camera is advertised with 3x digital zoom, no big deal. If you do it in camera, image quality is irreversibly lost. Someone in a digital camera forum once mentioned that he uses digital zoom because it might mean the difference between capturing a great shot or not at all. Umm, lets think about this a bit. True, if by zooming digitally in camera you get to see what your subject is doing and thus can capture the shot at the right moment. So, its really up to you, if you know what youre doing. Here it is: Always use optical zoom. If you do use digital zoom, use it only if it does not appreciably impact your image quality. If you rarely print past 4x6 in.

When comparing cameras, you should always use optical zoom. There is no point in comparing digital zoom with digital zoom or optical zoom with total zoom. Always compare optical zoom with optical zoom.

Resolution What about optical zoom vs. Now yall know that we cannot and should not be comparing apples n oranges, but we still try. The megapixels resolution of a digital camera can be thought of as the number of pixels available to capture an image. With a 2 megapixels camera, you have 2 million pixels to record an image. Whether you zoom or not does not affect how many pixels are used to capture the image. So, zoomed at its maximum, a 2 megapixels 3x optical zoom digital camera will still have captured a 2 million pixels image. Likewise, a 3 megapixels 2x optical zoom digital camera will always capture a 3 million pixels image. With a 2 megapixels digital camera, you can make good 4x6 in.

With a 3 megapixels digital camera, you can make good 8x10 in. So, as far as image quality is concerned, the 3 megapixels camera is better. Unless you are always going to take pictures at max. 3MP camera is better because at 2x optical zoom and less, it is always capturing images with more detail than the 2MP camera.

What we are really trying to say is this: do not compare. If the answer is both, then find a digital camera that has both. If its outside your pocketbook range, then choose a digital camera for what is more important to you. We usually recommend buying a digital camera with at least 3 megapixels resolution because of the better image quality. 3x optical zoom is standard with most consumer digital cameras. We never bother to check how much digital zoom a camera provides, and ignore the marketing hype surrounding it. We always disable digital zoom in camera, choosing to do our own cropping and enlarging in an image editing software. Only optical zoom matters when selecting a digital camera.

Smart Zoom works only if you select an image size smaller than the full available image size. So, for example, if your digital camera is capable of producing a 5MP image, Smart Zoom is available only if you select to save your images as 4MP or less. Say, your digital camera is 5MP and you select to save your images as 3MP. So, in effect, youve basically more or less retained the same image quality but you have to save your resulting simulated zoomed image in a smaller image size.

3MP image can be enlarged up to without image degradation. 3MP, which means that Smart Zoom is useful only in digital cameras with 4MP and above. So, our recommendation still holds. Always compare optical zoom with optical zoom. 6x6cm film for that matter. 4inchx5inch and 8inchx10inch are also very popular film sizes amongst professional photographers. If you really want to get down to brass tacks, there is a formula which you can use to figure out the megapixel equivalent of the film you are using. However, for the average consumer who prints 4x6 prints at walgreens this is just an overkill.

However if you are making 7 foot by 10 foot mural prints and you want sharp and tonally perfect prints, go with an 8x10 camera. Just because film can surpass the quality of digital cameras should not mean that you should dismiss digital cameras as some kind of novelty. In many ways digital photography has revolutioned many fields of photography from photo journalism to product photography. But film has its niche too especially in the fine art field and in some specialty commercial photo fields. Fact is that your choice of film or digital really depends upon what you are doing in the photo field. Nowadays when people mention about purchasing digital cameras, they usually compare the cameras by the number of megapixels they have, for eg 7 mp to 10mp. However, megapixels are not the only quality to look out for. With that being said, one of the most important thing to look out for is the amount of optical zoom it provides.

Camera specs comes with 2 types of zoom, digital and optical. In digital zoom however, the camera uses its software to digitally enlarge these images, thus compromising its photo quality. Optical zoom are very useful, and can range between 3x to 10x or even 12x. It really depends on what you need. But beware, look out for only those cameras that comes with OPTICAL image stablizer. Also, point and shoot cameras comes in many form. 200 camera will probably only have very limited manual function, functions like Aperture Priority, Shuttle Speed Priority, Programme Mode, Full Manual mode etc. If youre an amateur photographer like me, these arent usually very important, unless you want to explore around and learn to become a more professional photographer. 10MP, optical zoom around 4x to 6x, and plenty of manual functions too.

Personally, I own a Canon Powershot A710 IS. It has almost full manual functions, thus giving amateur photgraphers who wants to experience manual controls to have total control over their shots.