Crazy though it may sound, we all know the Christmas shopping season is just around the corner. While Christmas should be the happiest season of all, the thought of shopping for the perfect camera to capture those holiday memories can be a total nightmare.

For that reason, over the next three weeks I am going to take the mystery out of shopping for digital cameras. I am taking three weeks to cover them, because there are simply too many cameras – and types of cameras – on the market today to limit it to one article.

The first question someone normally asks me about cameras is what type of camera to buy. Given the availability and relatively low prices of digital cameras, I rarely recommend a film camera. The question then becomes, “What type of digital camera should I buy?” I generally divide the world of digital cameras into three broad sections that encompass most, if not all, consumer cameras.

The first group is the compact digital camera which for my purposes includes what the industry calls “compacts” and “ultra compacts.” These two distinctions, based on the size of the camera, are not important to subdivide here. Compacts are the smaller body cameras that don’t have high-powered zooms or removable lenses. These are generally the least expensive and are well suited for college and family life, as well as posting to the Web.

The second group consists of the high-zoom digital cameras and is a smaller group. It is important to note that there is a difference between optical zoom and digital zoom, of which a lot of consumers are uninformed. Optical zoom is a physical movement of the lens closer to the subject that creates a clearer, sharper image of the focused area. Once the lens has moved as far as it can, digital zoom takes over and the camera’s computer crops the image in all directions to make the subject take up more room on the photo. It does not increase the actual clarity of the image. With that in mind, the best high-zoom cameras can be quite tricky. We’ll look at them next week.

The final group is the digital single-lens reflex camera, or DSLR. Without being overly complicated, suffice it to say that DSLRs use a mirror to project the image to the viewfinder before reaching the shutter. (For those of you who crave more technical information, just google “DSLR.”) DSLR users have the advantage of being able to change lenses for different photographic needs from telephoto to wide-angle lenses. Most DSLRs have a six- or larger megapixel censor, advantageous for printing photos. The most significant downside is the cost: a good DSLR will cost over $1000, with each additional lens costing $200 and up.

I hope these articles over the next three weeks take away the mystery and headache of digital camera shopping. Happy hunting!