If you are out in the market to buy a digital camera, then you will probably face the same dilemma of multiple choices as you would face while buying any other electronic goods like a laptop, desktop or even a printer. Be it a "point and shoot" camera or a high tech DSLR camera, the brand names and models are too many in number to let you make a choice easily. Therefore, in order to be able to choose the right camera for your needs, choose a camera depending on some of these factors.

Consider your budget and choose a camera within that budget only. Do not worry even if you have a apparently skimpy budget as digital cameras have come a long since it was first introduced. Nowadays it is possible to get a great camera within a budget of $500 which would probably have more features than a camera worth thousands of dollars a few years back.

In the specs, check that your digital camera has a 2-3 inch LCD, the bigger the better. A bigger LCD with the proper resolutions lets you decide the quality of the photo taken immediately. Also check to see if the screen is visible enough in sunlight as some are not. If you can not see the pictures that you took on the LCD screen in the sunlight, then you should not opt for that digital camera.

There are plenty of shooting modes available with the digital cameras of today, macro, landscape, and low light, sunny, cloudy and so on. Even the most compact cameras have these basic settings but if you are looking for a camera with manual settings to tinker with, then you better make sure that the camera that you are about to buy has one. Clear your mind and make a checklist about what are the settings that you want from your camera and then make sure that your new digital camera has them.

If your camera has PC sync software (which it will), then you do not need to worry whether or not the memory card of your digital camera has a reader. Select the appropriate memory card compatible with your digital camera like Micro SD or Mini SD. If you are an avid user then you will need a big card, like a 4 GB or 8 GB memory card, but a 2 GB card will be adequate enough if you are a casual user.

My suggestion is that a 5 mega pixel camera is more than enough to suit your needs even if you have to crop your image considerably. Do not go below that but the idea that mega pixels are responsible for the quality of the photograph is not entirely true; it is the lens and the image processor that actually decides the overall quality of the picture taken so unless you are buying a DSLR or the print size that you need is massive, a 5 or 6 MP camera will do just fine.