 By David Wallace
Marshall McLuhan said "The medium is the message" in exploring how technology would affect humans long before digital cameras arrived. Today, the number of images circulating through society and the ways to take said images has exploded.
Ever-improving image quality and rising numbers of megapixels, dropping prices and widespread use makes photography skills and online sharing crucial.
Manufacturers are offering specially-marketed cameras to shoot images for eBay auctions or YouTube videos as the newest in co-branding and special feature additions. Sony cameras can connect to a high-definition television screen and let you see images at poster-size proportions.
Casio claims its ExLim camera with "YouTube Capture Mode" can record MPEG4-quality video that is immediately ready to upload. A built-in software automatically connects to while video compression rates allow up to 3 hours of video on a 2-gigabyte SD card.
Cameras already do much of the work once done by people—from image-stabilization to reduce blur or face-recognition that improves close-ups of people. Camera phones, disposable digital video and still cameras only add to the confusion. It pays to look for high-quality lens optics from companies such as Carl Zeiss or Leica instead of just piling on more megapixels.
Other features are technology breakthroughs. Cropping, removing red eye and other improvements are one thing, but HP has devised a way to make your subjects slimmer. The photographer can view before and after images to see how to alter the image and make people look more slender. So if your friends and family are among those who hate looking at their own pictures on account of looking "fat", these are the camera models for you.
Point-and-shoot digitals have a short shelf life—declining prices and ever-changing features mean difficult comparison shopping. But single-lens reflex with more manual settings from Canon, Nikon and Olympus may offer greater freedom to adjust exposures and create special effects.
Of course for some users, the camera's exterior color may be the most important feature. Sony, Kodak and HP can match a camera's case to other traveling accessories.
So the real question is not what the camera can do for you, but what you are capable of doing with the camera—give it a shot, you may uncover the technical guru in you.
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