Compact digital cameras make so much sense when you think of all the things that you can do with them that you just couldn't do with film cameras in the past. You can view the photos as you take them. You can upload them to your home computer for further editing in a photo edit program. You can save them on your hard drive to be printed out whenever you like. You can email copies to anyone around the world, and much more. And besides all that, they are light and compact and can easily be taken almost anywhere.

So it's no wonder that many camera buyers are opting to purchase digital cameras rather than film cameras these days. But the two mediums are completely different and so what should you be looking for when you buy a compact digital camera? Here are some things that you should watch for:

* The LCD screen. Almost all digital cameras these days come with a built in LCD screen for framing the shot beforehand and viewing it afterwards. But some have larger screen sizes above 2 inches or so that give you better clarity, especially for those of us whose eyes aren't what they used to be. So if that describes you, look for a LCD screen that is over 2 inches in size.

* Many digital cameras have autofocus built in so that you don't have to fiddle with focusing each shot before you take it. This is another great feature, but some autofocus mechanisms work faster than others. The fastest ones work in less than .5 seconds. What this means to you is that when you press the shutter button, the camera has to focus before it actually takes the photo and the time between when you press the button and the moment that the picture is actually taken is called "shutter lag", and this lost time interferes with how many shots you can take in a row when fast sequence events are happening. So check each camera that you are considering and see how long the autofocus mechanism takes to do it's job. Those that take a full second or more will probably be irritating to work with over the long haul.

* If you buy a compact digital camera that has a strong zoom factor of 10X or more you may want to be sure that you have image stabilization built into your camera to help eliminate some of the shaking caused by your hands. With most compact digital cameras this will not be a major problem, but when the focal length increases to the equivalent of a 200mm lens or more, it's easy to get blurry photos just from hand holding the camera. Image stabilization technology has come a long way though and can be a big help in this area, so if telephoto shots are important to you, be sure to also look for this feature on the camera.

There are lots of great compact digital cameras available today at very reasonable prices. So do your homework, check the features that are most important to you, and buy the compact digital camera that fits you best.