Best Digital Cameras for Your Pre-Teen

Buying a camera used to be easy enough right? All you had to look for was a camera that had an automatic flash and the button to push when you wanted to take the picture. Now-a-days this isn’t the case. The world of photography has gone digital and so have our children; especially pre-teens. They love to take pictures of themselves, their friends, and pretty much anyone who will let them capture a moment. But buying the best digital cameras for a pre-teen child can be difficult. With so many different cameras out there, and a multitude of features and extras, it can get a little overwhelming. Here is a guide to helping you find the best digital camera for your pre-teen.

Step 1

What will your child be using the camera for? This is the first question you need to ask yourself. This will help you determine what kind of camera to buy. Before you jump into buying a digital camera talk with your child about what they plan to do with the pictures. Do they want to email them to others, or use them to create an online photo album? Will they be printing them off and blowing them up? Are they so into picture taking that they want to try and create a more professional look? Figure out what they want it for so you can narrow your search.

Step 2

Now that you have determined what the camera will be used for you are going to want to figure out how many megapixels you want. Digital pictures are made up of megapixels. The more megapixels, the sharper the picture. This is why step #1 is so important. The number of megapixels really depends on the use of the camera. If you’re planning on viewing the pictures on your computer screen (emails and photo albums) you won’t really notice a big difference if you have a two mega pixel camera or a five mega pixel camera. These images are just too big to get a really clear picture anyway. If your child is really into photography and wants to print the pictures off, wanting them to have a better quality look, then you will want to buy a digital camera with between six to ten megapixels.

Step 3

Your next step in buying the best digital camera for a pre-teen child is determining how much memory you will need. All digital cameras come with two types of memory:
1.Internal Memory (built into the camera)
2.Removable memory or what we call memory cards
If you don’t want to spend a lot of memory, a digital camera will always come with some built in memory. It won’t usually be very much, but it’s enough to take some pictures and then start over again. The best way to go with pre-teen kids is to buy a memory card that can be removed from the camera. Memory cards can hold as few as 100 pictures to as many as 1000 plus. The more memory, the more money you will pay. Memory cards are great for kids because once they’ve taken the pictures, they can print them off (or download them) and then re-use the card by erasing the pictures and starting over.

So now that you know a little more of about what to look for, let’s talk about a couple of great digital camera choices for pre-teens.

The first is the Fisher price Kid-tough Digital camera. This camera is designed for three years and up and is made durable enough for the smallest hands to handle. The screen allows its user to see the pictures that they’re taking and it is easy for the child to hold and handle. It also has a two eye view finder that lets kids look through the camera with two eyes instead of one. It also has big buttons, an automatic flash, and 8MB of memory. You can connect it to the computer with a USB cord and the greatest thing about it is that you don’t have to worry about it breaking into a million pieces if it drops.

The second digital camera that’s a great buy for pre-teens is the Argus QC 2185 quick clip 2MB camera. It is a beginner camera made especially for pre-teens. It’s an easy point and shoot, and also has the ability for your child to make movie clips. It comes equipped with a CD Rom as well as an ARC-Soft- Photo Impressions software that teaches you how to create and edit the movie clips. It only carries 8MB of memory, but also has the ability to expand the memory with its built in digital memory storage card. It too has an auto flash, USB cord, and is user friendly for both Mac and Windows.

Keep in mind that as you are looking for cameras, the best digital cameras for a pre-teen child will the ones that you research and they help you find. Let them try them out before you actually buy them to see how easy it is for them to use.