Digital Camera Features

A digital camera, of course, does not use film, but instead employs a photosensitive device – typically a CCD, or (”Charged Coupled Device”), or CMOS (”Complementary Metal Oxide Semiconductor”) sensor – to capture light falling upon it, and create an image. The sensor is composed of hundreds of thousands, or millions, of individual picture elements, or “pixels”, and the total number of pixels determines the resolution of the camera. Generally speaking, the higher the number of pixels, the higher the quality of the finished image, but the higher the file size required to accommodate that image. So, while a 5Mp camera may be suitable for the production of, say, 6″ x 4″, 7″ x 5″, or larger, photographic prints, it may be less suitable for photographs to be sent by email, because of the file sizes involved.

A digital camera obviously needs to store digital photographs on some kind of storage medium, and this is generally a memory expansion card of one form, or another. The SD, or “Secure Digital”, card, for example is one of the most popular forms, offering up to 4GB of storage capacity. Depending upon the make, and model, of your chosen digital camera, other proprietary formats – such as Memory Stick, or Memory Stick Duo, for Sony digital cameras, or various types of xD Picture Card for Olympus, and Fuji, digital cameras – may be available. The important thing to remember is that the higher the resolution of the photographs you take, the more storage space they will require.

Pricing is obviously a major consideration when buying a digital camera or camcorder, and a simple, straightforward digital camera can be obtained, nowadays, for as little as £50, or £60. If you are looking for more manual control – over shutter speed, aperture, etc. – akin to that found in digital SLR (”Single Lens Reflex”) cameras, but without the hefty price tag, you may like to consider a compact digital camera, which typically costs somewhere between £100 and £250. For more serious – and, indeed, affluent – photographers, digital SLR cameras are available at the £400 mark, or less, but truly “professional” digital SLR cameras still cost in excess, and sometimes well in excess, of £1,000.

Tags: advice, buying, camera, digital, slr

This entry was posted on Friday, May 9th, 2008 at 9:24 pm and is filed under Photo techniques, Tips and advice. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.