Increasingly becoming popular and being accepted as the latest device to make photographs with higher quality and quantity, the digital camera is replacing the film based camera that we were used to for many years in the past. Prior to getting into any of the advanced aspects of this piece of technology of the digital age, it is better to start from the basics and work our way up.

Quite simply, a digital camera, like any other camera, performs the function of taking videos or still photographs, or both, while using digital technology to record images on a light-sensitive sensor. One of the common but increasingly great features of these types of cameras as compared to film cameras is its ability to record sound and videos, as well as photographs.

A main feature of a digital camera that is of high advantage over a conventional film camera is its ability to display an image on the camera's screen instantly, after an image is taken. In addition, it is also brilliant in its ability to take a multitude of images on a single memory device which comes in various memory capacities. These capacities are much larger than what a film camera ever permitted. Also, like any other storage device, the storage space provided by these memory sticks are equipped with the ability to edit and delete images, which as a result provides the reusable ability of storage.

During recent times, digital cameras have reached the market coupled with many technological devices. Mainly, they have been included in devices such as PDAs, mobile phones, and vehicles. Of these, the use of digital cameras in technological marvels such as the Hubble Space Telescope and other scientific devices is vital to the effectiveness and popularity of the digital camera.

Digital cameras come in various types, ranging from highly advanced users to the consumers. The main types of digital cameras are,

Compact digital cameras

Bridge cameras

Digital single lens reflex cameras

Digital rangefinders

Professional modular digital camera systems

Line-scan camera systems

Of these the compact digital cameras are the ones that normal consumers like us use, in our basic photography needs. They are designed to be small and compact, as the word suggests, and have the ability to provide features such as live preview (used to frame the photo).

Almost all digital cameras can be connected to a computer to transfer images stored in them. The most commonly used apparatus and technology for this purpose is a USB (universal serial bus) cable and port. Other cameras however, use wireless connections, via Bluetooth or WiFi.

Another important and vital feature of this piece of digital technology is the presence of different modes from which an image can be captured. It is commonly found in many digital cameras, this ability to provide different preset modes in different settings, based on the nature of the photograph being taken.

"Within the constraints of correct exposure various parameters can be changed, including exposure, aperture, focusing, light metering, white balance, and equivalent sensitivity. For example a portrait might use a wider aperture to render the background out of focus, and would seek out and focus on a human face rather than other image content". - www.wikipedia.com

These digital cameras have various forms of storage media as well. They are grouped as follows,

Onboard flash memory - Cheap cameras and cameras secondary to the device's main use (such as a camera phone)

Video Floppy - a 2x2 inch (50 mm × 50 mm) floppy disk used for early analog cameras

PC Card hard drives - early professional cameras (discontinued)

Thermal printer - known only in one model of camera that printes images immediately rather than storing

FP Memory - a 2-4 MB serial flash memory, known from the Mustek/Relisys Dimera low end cameras - (www.wikipedia.com)



Summery: This article describes what a digital camera is, it's uses and it's advantages over conventional film cameras.