You are going to need a camera if you are taking the plunge into digital photography, and the key consideration in choosing a digital camera is speed. In digital photography, speed is an important issue because digital cameras need time to transfer the image to your storage media. The photography pros call this ’shutter lag.’ With candid photography, a three-second shutter lag can mean the difference between capturing your child with the perfect grin, and taking a blah, ordinary photo.

You also want startup speed in your digital camera, because they eat up a lot of batteries. If you are doing a type of photography where you are taking photos intermittently, you will want to be able to turn of your digital camera, and then have it start right up again when the perfect photography moment arises.

Another speed requirement in digital photography is for the autofocus. Once again, you do not want to aim your digital camera, but find your target has wandered off while you wait for your autofocus to resolve your photo.

Also a consideration in digital photography is TTL - through the lens composition. This digital photography term refers to the fact that some digital cameras require photographers to compose their photos on an image screen. A digital camera with TTL has a viewfinder, like a film camera, allowing the battery-sucking screen to be shut off most of the time.

If you are the least bit interested in using digital photography to produce quality photos as a hobby, you will want manual controls. Even if you do not know what those controls do, someday you will want to compose a photo without using the presets built into the digital camera.

Megapixels are also an important element of digital photography. Generally, the more megapixels your digital camera can take, the larger your end photographs can be without distortion. However, the more megapixels, the slower your camera responds, and even just three megapixels will produce large, quality photos.

You love to take photographs and you’re pretty good at it. What could be better than making money while doing something you love. You will find below five ways to make money with your photography.

The first of the five ways to make money with your photography is by taking photos for calendars. The easiest way to find a calendar publisher for your photos is to simply pick up a calendar and find out who published it. Many times there is a contact phone number on the calendar and you can use that to contact the publisher and find out what their needs and requirements are.

The next way to make money with your photography is by taking photos for greeting Cards. Hallmark is a major producer of greeting cards and they can be reached at: Hallmark Cards Plc, Bingley Road, Bradford, United Kingdom, BD9 6SD. They accept color and black and white images in all formats.

Another source of income to be made with your photography is by selling your photos to photographic magazines. Usually photos are purchased with descriptive text highlighting exactly how the photo was taken and processed.

You can also sell your photos to a stock library. A stock library is an organization that sells your photo directly to a publisher thus freeing you from having to try and sell them yourself. However, there is a cost involved and it usually runs about 50% of your commission.

Finally, you photographic contests can be an excellent way to make money from your photography. Winners are often awarded a variety of great prizes including cruises, new cars, camera equipment, and cash.