For enthusiasts. advanced amateurs and semi professional photographers, there is a wide choice of high end digital cameras available. Semi-professional and professional photographers tend to predominantly use Canon and Nikon digital cameras and SLRs. High end digital SLRs can be very expensive once you total the cost of the camera body, lenses, accessories and flash equipment. Fortunately for the enthusiast, there are many mid-range digital cameras and SLRs which offer some high end features and are attractively priced. Some of the features to look out for when choosing an enthusiast digital camera include:

Speed - the digital camera must have minimal shutter lag for fast picture taking.

Zoom lens - the zoom lens must be 3x or longer and must be capable of producing sharp high quality photos.

Manual controls - aperture priority, shutter priority and full manual control can be useful in achieving creative results, controlling depth of field, action shots and for macro photography.

Battery Life - the digital camera battery must be able to last for a reasonable time before recharging is required.

Large LCD - the LCD viewfinder must be 2" or larger to accurately view and compose the picture.

Except where otherwise stated, all the digital cameras recommended for the enthusiast have the above features.

Other features/additions which can be useful include:

Raw format - Unlike jpegs, raw images are not compressed and processed in any way by the camera and have to be adjusted on a PC using the appropriate raw conversion program. Large memory cards or external storage devices will be required if the raw format is used frequently.

Powerful zoom - A wide angle zoom for landscapes and interiors can be useful. Also a long telephoto zoom lens is also desirable for distant shots.

Optical image stabilizer - for shooting in low light conditions without flash or using a digital camera with a large telephoto lens.

A hotshoe - for adding an external flashgun or for attaching studio flash via an adapter.

An SLR camera is the idea camera in terms of image quality, range of accessories and speed of operation but some of the compacts listed below come very close to matching SLR quality.