You could still use a traditional camera to take pictures of your baby, but these days, a digital camera is an almost essential item for a new dad. Babies don't pose very well, so with a traditional camera you are going to be stuck with a lot of bad pictures and might even miss out on getting a good picture of certain events. Did you really catch one of her first smiles, or did she turn away too quickly? With a film camera, you won't know until you get the pictures developed, but you will be able to preview your digital pictures almost instantly.

Taking Pictures

One of the biggest advantages of having a digital camera is that you can take an almost unlimited number of pictures with them. After the initial cost of the camera, you don't have to worry about spending money buying film or having it developed. You simply take your pictures, transfer them to your computer, and then start all over again.

Because you don't have to pay for each picture you take and you don't even have to keep them if they don't turn out well, digital cameras make it easier to get at least a few good pictures of your baby. Are you hoping to get a picture of her first steps that shows the big smile on her face? Then take five or ten pictures and use your camera's preview function to see if you captured the moment. If you didn't, keep trying. Once you get the picture you want, transfer it to your computer and save it or send it to your friends and family.

Viewing Your Pictures

One of the downsides of having a digital camera is that you don't always have a physical picture that you can hold and carry around with you. While you could always print your pictures from your computer using a color printer, that can use up a lot of ink and get expensive. New services make it easy and inexpensive to make real prints of your digital pictures.

One of the easiest ways to inexpensively create high-quality prints of your digital pictures is to use an online photo service to do everything for you. These companies, such as Kodak Gallery and Shutterfly, allow you to upload or transfer your photos to them over the Internet and then view, edit, and order prints. For only fifteen cents each (plus shipping), you can get high-quality pictures sent right to your home. You also can create your own greeting cards, calendars, and online photo albums with your pictures. With Kodak Gallery, you can even pick up your photos the same day at a nearby Target or CVS.

If you don't want to make real prints of your digital pictures, you can also just view them online. Using your computer, you can set up digital photo albums or slide shows to look at and organize all of your pictures. There is even software that will let you create a photo slideshow and burn it on a CD or DVD so that you can simply watch it on TV, just as you would a movie. Or you can use a digital photo frame, which is an electronic frame that can store and display your digital photos, to carry your pictures around.

Choosing a Camera

Deciding which digital camera to buy can be a little overwhelming. Although they all basically function the same way, you have a lot of choices among different brands and features. Among the features to consider are the camera's storage capacity, whether or not it has an optical zoom, the camera's size, its compatibility with your home computer, and the number of megapixels it has. Of course you also have to consider how much money you want to spend.

Most of these choices will be based on your personal preferences. If you plan on taking a lot of pictures, especially when following your infant around, you should try to choose a small or compact size camera. These can easily fit in your pocket and so can be readily available when you need to capture a special moment. Other features to look for include an optical zoom, so that you can get close up for some pictures, and the ability to record short movie clips. A preview LCD screen is an essential feature, so that you can view the pictures you have just taken. That way you will know if you got a good picture or if you need to delete it and try again.

But what about the issue of megapixels? Do you want three, five, or seven? Or do you want a newer, more high-end digital camera with fourteen megapixels? For the average user, a five- or seven-megapixel camera is going to be more than enough. You can take pictures with more detail using a camera that has more megapixels, but unless you plan to routinely print 8"× 10" or larger prints, that probably isn't necessary. Even the file sizes of pictures from a five- or seven-megapixel camera are rather large and have to be reduced to send through e-mail or post on a website.

Keeping all of these features in mind, you should be able to get a good digital camera for $100 to $150. It may also be a good idea to spend a little extra and get a larger memory card so that you can store more pictures.