What really matters in digital Photography

Currently I'm spending quite some time brooding over the question which digital SLR (and which lenses) I should buy. One thing is clear: I need a DSLR. :-). But when I think longer about it, I find it rather strange that most of the things that really are crucial when deciding which digital camera (and not only DSLR) to buy are only rarely mentioned in reviews or tech specs.

So here's my list of things that are important but never mentioned:

1. Important for everybody: autofocus lag.

My first digital camera was a Canon Digital Ixus, my second one a Digital Ixus 400 (US: powershot s400). Both got great reviews at the time. And I made same pretty cool photos with them. I have some nice photos of sunsets, some amazing flowers, and even a few photos of elderly people that look good. And I might have taken excellent shots of snails (although I didn't as I find snails too unattractive to be photographed).

But when it comes to things that move like animals or even kids, I don't have a single good shot. And how could I - my cameras took about 2 seconds from the moment I pressed the button until the photo actually was taken. My greatest moments in this respect were when I was spending some time in Bengaluru and tried to take photos of holy cows that were hanging around next to the road while I was in a moving car. I've never taken so many shots of unoccupied spots of road. But not a single holy cow. After a couple of these situations I decided that I need a Canon Powershot S2IS which has an excellent autofocus time. I've never regretted that move.

Traffic madness in Bangalore (now: Bengaluru)
You can't do this with 90% of digital cameras

By the way, the reviews at dpreview.com contain incredibly detailed info about these kind of timing issues. You might want to take a look before you buy a camera.

2. Important for anybody remotely seriously interested in making good fotos: big zoom + control over aperture

Problem:
a) if you take a foto of somebody you want the background to be fuzzy.
b) with a 3-times optical zoom + no control over your aperture you will never make that happen (actually it's a bit more complicated, as I learnt recently, but the point stays the same).

Solution: buy a camera with an at least 8x optical zoom, and make sure it has a mode where you can control aperture or time.

Here I was very unhappy with my small cameras, and I was extremely happy with my Powershot S2IS. Actually in this respect you don't really need a DSLR. Canon's powershot (and similar products from Nikon and the others) allow you to take excellent portraits with a well focused subject and a nice blurry background.

See? That's what I mean. Imagine how this would look like
if the background was just as sharp and focused as the butterfly...

... to be continued ...