I want to buy a digital camera for professional purposes. My question is, how do I choose the right camera for this job, what's the best brand out there and which brand or model is the professional standard?

Eric Phan, Fitzroy, VIC

As far as professional digital cameras, that's a HUGE topic. and one that we can't do justice to here. Here are a few facts, though.

• It's still early days. Professional digital cameras are getting better and cheaper every day. Whatever you get will soon be outdated.
• There's no single standard.
• You'll probably want a single lens reflex (SLR) camera with interchangeable lenses. These can cost many, many thousands of dollars.
• Don't dismiss the non-interchangeable lens cameras, as there are now some which have the equivalent of 24-300mm lenses on a 35mm camera. However, one disadvantage is that they usually have a very meagre aperture range, such as F2.8 to F8 or even less.
• Check out the ranges from Nikon, Canon, Fuji and others. Some manufacturers such as Minolta and Pentax have excellent digital cameras, but have not yet released their SLR ranges.
• Whatever you do, try to borrow a couple of different sorts of digital cameras to see what features a useful to you and what characteristics will drive you mad.