How to select digital camera

I am sure many of us will have this questions, which camera to buy, and where to buy it?

I am going to talk about my experience in locking down my target, on how I choose the camera. Basically this is what I did:

1. Set your requirements / budget: depending on your requirements and budget, you can short list a few camera that match to your need. For example, I need a large optical zoom 10x, in this case only Panasonic Tz3, Tz4, Tz5, Canon SX100 and Sony Cybershot H3B matched to your requirement. Or I need a wide angle 25mm, in this case, only Panasonic Fx35. Or I need a wide angle 28mm, then Panasonic Tz3, Tz4, Tz5, Canon SD870 matched. You may notice that, those with similar requirements will have similar price. And almost every brand will have one or two cameras match to your requirement.


2. Do a survey on the forum, such as forums.dpreview.com, forum.digitalcamerareview.com, http://www.digitalcamera-hq.com/, http://www.photo-forums.com. However becareful when they are professional review. Usualy these professional review, they do give professional measurement, but sometimes they may not say bad things about a camera. Cnet do give quite a good review as well. However, the forum will have the input from many users.
   
3. Do a check on the buyers' survey, such as amazon.com. No one can give you a better feel than those who already own it.
   
4. Do a search on blog, many bloggers like me do share our experience.
   
5. Do a search on youtube. This is a new trick that I found out recently, many users or professional reviewer do take video on the user interface, video recording function and put on youtube.. so do remember to do a search on youtube.
   
6. Go to a nearby shop, try it out yourself before you order online!!!

Next I will talk about where to buy a camera....