Choosing a digital camera for a beginner is probably one of the most crucial unsolved problems of this century.

I'm exaggerating, of course, but if you attended the photography forum or Q & A sites like Yahoo Answers, you'll notice how often people who are new to the world of photography for the first time asking what is the right camera for a beginner if a model is better than another, what is the best camera to learn and so on.

In another article I talked about how to deal with the choice of a digital SLR camera for a beginner. For various reasons, however, some people prefer to buy a digital compact. Who among these, he wants to have the opportunity to learn how to take pictures, make sure that the camera must meet certain requirements. Let's see how to deal with the choice of a compact digital camera to learn how to take pictures.

Why choose a compact digital camera?

In my opinion, those who have some semi-serious intentions to photography and want to keep all options open to learn it is good to consider a DSLR. We all know, however, that the reflex have some disadvantages, especially from the economic point of view and the convenience of use and transport:

SLR cameras are more expensive, not necessarily at the beginning, the first purchase, but in the long run since the purchase of additional targets soon becomes inevitable for many photographers,
SLRs are bulky, especially when it comes to camera bodies and semi-professional telephoto lenses, which makes them more difficult to carry in daily life, which can be rather a good habit to learn how to take pictures, excessive clutter gets in the way when we are passionate about photography while traveling, and sometimes we lose valuable opportunities to make beautiful photographs
SLR cameras require more maintenance, especially as regards the cleaning of the sensor and the targets.

A compact digital camera allows you to avoid all these problems. Not to miss at the same time all the advantages of having an SLR, it is important to contact the models a bit 'more advanced, read on to find out which model is best to try.

What features to look for in a compact digital camera?

Those who follow me for a while ', you know that, in my opinion, anyone who wants to learn how to have control over the creation of the photo should try to leave as soon as the shutter modes automatically. For owners of the SLR, this is not always possible because a camera will always have semi-automatic and manual shooting modes. But this is not true for all compact.

The first criteria for the choice of the compact camera is the presence of the shutter modes Aperture-priority, time-priority, and manual. The cheaper cameras provide only shooting modes, which are sometimes called scene modes that automatically configure all of the settings, depending on the circumstances specified by the photographer (outdoor, night, party, etc.). A crucial aspect of photography that we all must learn is to calculate the exposure, or how the exposure triangle, that is how you have to use aperture, shutter speed and ISO to have creative control over the picture. This and prevented from fully automatic shooting modes, while the semi-automatic and manual modes let us greater control and thus the opportunity to experiment and learn.

Make sure the camera you want to buy has these shooting modes is easy: just look in the technical specifications which exposure modes are present, or look on the shooting mode dial you are the letters A, S and M

Another shortcoming of compact digital cameras are cheaper in the range of focal lengths. You can easily find cameras covering focal lengths low or medium but you have to turn to more advanced models to gain access to greater lengths, those that allow us pushed magnification. The focal length in compact cameras must always be compared to the equivalent focal length of 35 mm (due to the crop factor). In my opinion, it would be better to turn to the machines that achieve equivalent length greater than 100 mm. This will make it possible to experiment with focal lengths ranging from wide angle to telephoto and then taste a bit 'all types of photography and also understand how the focal length affects factors such as depth of field and perspective.

A less stringent requirement but equally important is the ability of the camera to take pictures of good quality with high ISO values. The high ISO is very useful for taking pictures indoors and in general in low light conditions. When we raise the ISO, however, we increase the noise and sometimes this can lead to having to discard a photo.

Compact digital cameras that have a value equal to a maximum of ISO 3200, 6400 or more typically reduce this risk (for this purpose, can be useful even a larger sensor, but better not to go too technical).

As for the maximum aperture, it would be good that came under f4, to be able to easily get blurred backgrounds.

Finally, an option very convenient, in my opinion, is the ability to shoot in RAW. If you read the article just linked, you will realize what this format has undeniable advantages. A photographer who wants to create quality images absolutely must know how to handle the RAW format files. The compact cameras that provide this opportunity are very few then use this requirement as too discriminating main limit the possible choices, we should make it into account.

An additional comfort may come from the presence of physical (not via the menu or touch screen) to control the exposure parameters, but this is a rare feature, since the compact, by their nature, have little space to accommodate these controls.

Beware of the portfolios

Unfortunately, as you can imagine, cameras that meet these requirements are those in the higher price ranges. Some of them are going to cost as much as a cheap SLR. What is certain is that once you buy a compact, charges will be nearly complete as we will not have to buy goals. But I believe there are no shortcuts: who really wants to learn to photograph has to give to make a large initial investment than those who are content with random shots.

But then, what models for black friday 2014?