Digital photo myths debunked

Despite the increasing popularity of digital photography, there are still many widely held misconceptions about it -- misconceptions that prevent people from getting involved.

It's time to do away with these tall tales and reveal the truth behind them. This five-part series will address the major concerns that people have when deciding whether they should go digital: cost, quality, difficulty, creative freedom, and time. Here are the top five myths that persist about digital photography.

Myth #1: Digital photography is expensive
Like any hobby, digital photography requires that you spend some money up front. But once you've bought the equipment, the process is virtually free of charge. In fact, it even saves you money in the long run.

Add it up
Let's begin with an obvious advantage: Digital photography saves you the price of rolls and rolls of film and development. So you can shoot lots of photos at no cost.

Costs are still incurred when you store or print, of course. And batteries will probably be your major expense over the life of the camera. But if your camera uses rechargeable batteries, you can shoot pictures all day for a few cents' worth of electricity.

Only the best
You're not going to want to keep every photo you take. Face it: Even the best photographers take lots of so-so pictures. Digital cameras instantly show you how your pictures look, so you can choose only the best, which means you save money by not printing the mediocre or bad ones. With traditional film, these photos would still get developed and printed before they finally wound up in the trash bin. At least with digital photos, you're only paying to print the good ones.

Dollars and sense
But you don't have to print every photo you keep either. If you've been a traditional photographer for any length of time, you're used to sharing photos primarily through developed prints.

However, once you get accustomed to seeing your photos on a computer and then sharing them electronically for free, you won't look upon prints as the only way to share your photography. You can easily e-mail your pictures to friends or post them on photo-sharing websites like hpphoto.com.

Let's say you shoot 24 photos. You may discard half, e-mail a handful to friends, and print out a few to display or send. In this way, the expenses are far lower than they would be with a film camera. And you're sharing photos more effectively and inexpensively than ever before.

New and improved
As digital cameras have increased in quality, their prices have dropped dramatically, as have the costs for both capturing images and printing them.

Are you one of those people waiting until the prices hit rock bottom before you jump in? It's only natural to think you should wait to buy a digital camera: In six months you'll get much more for your money. The problem is that you can use this rationale to delay a purchase for years; the new and improved models will always be just months away.

It's similar to buying a computer. People buy their computers when they need them, knowing that they'll upgrade them in a few years or replace them with newer models. Similarly, you may want to replace your digital camera every few years. But that shouldn't prevent you from getting involved now.