Beware the hype when buying a digital video camera. For many years the IT industry has sold products on the 'steak knives' principle: 'Buy one set and we will throw in all of this free!'

Most of the time what is being offered is of no use to you anyway. In the case of digital video cameras it is the digital zoom. Rarely has something more useless sold so many cameras. The digital zoom uses software to add pixels to an image to magnify it. While it will work reasonably to the power of 2x or 3x, anything higher produces just a blur. Manufacturers know this but insist on promoting cameras with up to 700x digital zoom. It is useless, so ignore it.

Also, beware of cameras with photo functions that produce low resolution still images. If you want to print your photographs you should aim for a minimum still image resolution of 1.3 megapixels or 1,280 x 960dpi, and make sure the photo is recorded on memory card rather than tape. Don't be tempted by the commonly offered 640 x 480 stills unless all you want to do with them is send them by email or put them on a Website.