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Buying a Digital Camera

Hidden Costs with 8+ Megapixel Cameras

SUMMARY: Higher-megapixel digital cameras may have hidden costs besides just the cost of the camera.

8+ megapixel digital cameras, especially digital SLRs, are great in that they potentially allow you to take photos with far greater detail than lesser-megapixel cameras. Plus, crisp photos can be printed blown up to a larger width and height. However, before you plunk down money on these cameras, recognize there may be some 'hidden' costs.

* To take full advantage of the digital camera's features by shooting photos in super-fine JPG or RAW format, you will need much more digital camera media.

* To process the larger photos, you may need a faster computer with more RAM, at least 512 megs, 1+ gigabytes recommended.

* To store your digital photos will require either more hard drive space or more time backing-up photos to external media.

This is certainly not to say you shouldn't buy a digital camera that can potentially take more detailed photos! It's just that there may be a higher total cost of ownership to consider.

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