Complete noob. looking for camera advise.

[shev]

Hello, I have absolutely no idea what I'm doing, dont know what is good and what isnt. I've based my decisions purely on the amount of mega pixels, but now I hear that doesnt even matter. is there another number that I can use to compare the quality of pictures? what makes a camera better at taking pics of certain things? like scenery or animals, shutter?

what is digital SLR professional? looking through digital cameras on ebay the price quadruples going from point and shoot to slr professional for 6 mp. Digital slr seem to get much much larger also, and not just the lense. how important is the lense? is it just for zooming? Ive talked to people that have sony cybershots and they take real nice pictures, but they are huge. I bought a camera on ebay a couple years ago, it was a hanshing 3.3 mp, but it enhances the pictures to 6.6 mp. it was 100$. took me forever to figure out how to get it to work on my computer, I ended up buying a memory card reader hooking it up to the computer then using the memory card to transfer the pictures from the camera.

thanks

 

[Meysha]

If you read this, it'll help you understand a lot of things and answer a few of your questions. Search the forum for megapixel quality or something like that and you should find plenty more.

http://www.thephotoforum.com/forum/showthread.php?t=30930

It sounds like you don't need a DSLR, because... well simply put, you don't need what you don't understand, in my opinion.

oh and the lens is practically everything.

 

[shev]

Thanks meysha. that explains pretty much all of my questions. Explains why the 6.6 mp was so cheap. wish i knew about this site a year ago.