As soon as people know that you are involved in digital photography, questions pop up out of free air. Now that the media are promoting the digital way of capturing memories, for many people the question arises : what do I need ? How much ? How many ? How fast ?
Admit it, looking around in several magazines, on the web and who knows what more sources you may find, it is not getting easier to make up your mind. And then there are the technical terms, the photo terms and the subjective 'promotional' terms. Some time ago 'capturing the moment' was nothing more than inserting a roll of film and pressing the button. Now it is all not so easy anymore. You should have a memory card, the right CCD/CMOS and enough Megapix to print in good ppi ... One is about to forget what it is all about : taking the picture of that moment you wanted to save for later.
And that is my answer to anyone who asks : what do I need to make good digital photo's : "what do you want to do with it ?". The same question one should ask himself before buying a PC, a car, a... anything !
If you don't want to enlarge pictures bigger than 15x15cm - forget anything fancy above 3Mpix. If you intend to have a nice printed photo on a A3-scale - forget all small photo-equipment and make sure you have a decent A3-photo printer. And this all makes a BIG difference in your wallet. I'm not getting to technical here; there are a lot of professional sites which do a much better job than I, but I do want to stress the idea of reflection for the meaning and the means.

What sense does it have to be able to 'record up to 30 seconds' of stupid-bad-quality movies with a photocamera ? You buy a digital movie camera instead, they are constructed for this job. Why going for a 'rechargeable batterypack' when you use the camera on a festival or concert and there is no possible way of recharging on the spot ? You intend to use the camera with several persons : go for the easy manipulation version. Don't forget that you have a shutter-delay on most consumer cams; you will not have the picture on the card exactly as you saw it. With the prosumer models you will not have this problem.

And what is more : taking pictures is all about looking, about seeing, about having an 'eye' for composition, for situations, for 'the moment'. That is one big topic that most people forget. It is just an other medium of recording that moment. Switching to digital because it is hip to have will result in another item to add to the dust collecting pile of unused items. It is in my opinion important that you still have the spirit to go for 'that moment' to have an 'eye' for the situation, and whether you capture that unique split-second on film or on a digital memory-card, that is just a technical issue. In both the cases the processing from this moment to a presented picture, remains an important step for the photographer. To give it your touch, is to insert your personality. And that are no bits and pixels.