Now that you know a bit about lens coverage, lens speed, shutter
speeds, flash range, and other features, you can visit your local
camera shop prepared. You'll be able to share your needs (wider
coverage, extra reach, better flash range, whatever) and see which
models meet them.
You'll probably be offered several choices. Some may be weather
resistant, some may have metal bodies instead of plastic, and still
others may offer remarkably long warrantees.
Speaking of which, most point-and-shoot cameras will last 5-10 years
with average use. By the time they do finally break, it's usually not
economical to repair them. It's pretty uncommon to see a current or
recent model in the shop for service, so in reality there's not much
difference between the practical value of a one year warranty and five
years. The latter provides more peace of mind, but don't place too much
emphasis on the length of the warranty.
Handle the camera. See what you like, and pay particular attention
to the viewfinder itself (especially if you wear glassed). Look at
little things, such as the huge illuminated LCD on the back of the
Fujifilm Zoom Date 1000 and 1300 - personal favorites with metal
bodies, wide/slow lenses, stroboscopic preflash, compact size,
competitive price, and excellent picture quality.
What About APS?
We covered a lot of things about APS up
front, but the more time I spent working in a camera store, the
more I wished it would just go away (since writing this, it has!).
Between customers going on vacation and not being able to find APS film
and APS cameras that refuse to rewind a roll (and there's no way to
manually extract it), it's not worth the aggravation.
Sure, APS sounded like a brilliant idea, but every advance in APS
film technology made its way to the slightly larger 35mm format, and
the disadvantages far outweigh the few advantages. The cost of
developing APS put the final nail in the coffin.
Sure, if someone specifically asked for APS, I wouldn't talk them
out of it, but if they did't ask, I wasn't going to mention it.
Stick with 35mm. It's been around since the 1930s, and it's not
likely to follow the 126, 110, and Disk formats into oblivion.
