Don't lose those precious travel memories when you go on vacation.
Careful camera choice and knowledge of how it works will save a lot of embarrassment when those important times don't look nearly as good in digital form as they did in real life.
Or they have vanished altogether.
Here are seven things you can do to keep those moments forever fresh.
Choose your camera before you leave on vacation It's easy to save some money by getting your camera duty free, but your chances of being able to operate it efficiently in a hurry are fairly slim.
Modern cameras are becoming cheaper and have better quality lenses, sensors, specs and overall quality than they did even two years ago.
Make the investment and enjoy superior results.
Stay with the well known brands.
$300 and up will get you a great camera in the point and shoot range.
Get comfortable with your camera Ask to hold your camera before you buy it.
Do the controls fit under your fingers, or are they so tiny you press several at once? Are they placed logically for you? Ask the demonstrator to show you how to hold the camera firmly.
Get an explanation of how the menu works.
It's hard to shoot quickly if you can't find the right settings.
Is the viewfinder convenient and easy to see? Some cameras come with an LCD screen only, and some have an electronic viewfinder as well.
A screen can be very hard to see in the sun.
An electronic viewfinder is really a very small LCD screen.
It uses up battery power, and a further disadvantage is that, because electronic viewfinders cannot resolve fine detail, it's hard to see whether the subject's eyes are open or closed, for instance.
An optical system viewfinder does not have this problem.
Optical versus digital zoom These are often confused, but there is a big difference in the quality between them.
Digital zoom takes a portion of the picture and enlarges it back to the original size.
Individual pixels in the image are removed or magnified causing quality loss and a lower resolution.
It's also not true magnification.
The picture is manipulated electronically, and the end result is that your image won't look great.
Optical zoom is made by the lens and will not affect picture quality, so this should be your first choice always.
Some manufacturers will combine the optical and digital magnifications to give a more impressive specification, but ignore this and find the true optical value.
Is the camera small enough to carry? How much equipment do you really need? Do you want to carry a lot extra as you would with a bigger camera with interchangeable lenses? Or will something that fits into your pocket do? Be realistic about your skill level, and don't pay a lot for extras you will hardly if ever use.
Let the professionals pay the big bucks.
Just make sure you have a good protection pouch to carry it in.
Don't put all your eggs in one basket There are many memory cards on the market with capacities of 8GB and more, and in February 2010 an SCXD card was released with a 64GB capacity.
However while these may sound grand, there is always the possibility of card failure or corruption with any of these devices.
This usually means irretrievable loss of your precious images.
I feel far more comfortable with two or three cards of 4GB or less, so if one card develops a problem, I haven't lost all my images.
Batteries With travel, a decent battery system is a major concern.
Battery failure at the wrong moment will often cause an irreplaceable loss of a shot.
Don't rely on standard AA batteries.
Get the best for your camera, and lithium rechargeables are great.
A little thought and careful shopping will go a long way to bring you pleasure after the holiday with successful photographs.
Decide what you want your camera to do, make a list of the features you need and then go shopping.
Stay with the major brands, keep it simple, learn the automatic features first and then experiment further with the other settings.
Happy holidays!