So, what’s your budget for a digital camera? That’s one of the first questions a salesman will ask, when they catch you skulking around their shop trying to inconspicuously check out their lineup of digital cameras. It’s a hard question for many consumers to answer, when you’ve never priced digital cameras before. Digital camera prices vary widely, depending primarily on quality and functionality.

Asking what your want your camera to do for you and how you plan to use it would be a far better question to consider before starting your digital camera search. Since digitals range in price these days from $100 to around $5000, price is really to vague a consideration to think about in the beginning. For the sake of discussion, though we could break digitals down by price category. This should at least give you a baseline to start from.

All camera manufacturers have been guilty of over hyping the latest and greatest technical features on their models for some time now. Some photography aficionados have even gone so far as to suggest that manufactures latest tech features have more to do with marketing timing, then true technical advancements.

It is always nice to be able to select different modes when shooting different subjects. The flash is also important. The main concern with a digital camera is also the internal memory and memory card. You want to be able to hold as many pictures on the memory card without uploading to the computer.

I’ve always believed buying the top digital camera today was a mistake. You usually end up paying too much, and are far more likely to end up being a guinea pig for Canon, Nikon, Sony or whomever builds your favorite brand name camera.

In the $500 to $1000 your looking at a cornucopia of entry digital level digital SLR cameras. Models like the Canon XTi Digital Rebel, and the Nikon D40 are good examples.

When all is said and done, and your enjoying all the great pictures you’ve taken over the years, the top digital camera is just the one that’s captured all your favorite memories. Or, if it’s the artist in you that drives your camera purchase, then then same rule applies.

It’s the final pictures and images that really matter. There’s more than one way (or camera) that can deliver on that promise.