What is a Digital Camera
A camera is a device for capturing images by optical, chemical, mechanical or electronic methods, or through a combination of all of these. I won’t go into these alternative methods here, as that is a subject for another article. Suffice it to say, that all consumer cameras use a lens (typically glass), a capture media (something to absorb and respond to the light gathered by the lens) and some controls for focusing and adjusting the amount of light exposure the capture media sees. The first commercially successful consumer cameras used photographic film as the capture media.
The first digital cameras were film cameras modified to replace the film carrier with a photosensitive chip that converted the light to digital pulses which were then electronically developed through software into a resulting image. As you can imagine these cameras were expensive, technically complex, not user friendly, fairly low resolution (i.e. poor image quality) and, again, expensive. But, as price came down and image quality improved the digital camera market took off.
Today, when someone purchases a camera we don’t even ask whether or not it is a digital camera as film photography has returned to its pre-George Eastman status, as the province of a few dedicated professionals and amateurs willing to accept the additional cost, time and effort for the specialized results they are able to obtain through use of photographic film.
Digital Cameras Digital cameras are commonly grouped into three categories:
1) Digital Compacts (90% of the cameras marketed and sold)
2) DSLRs (Digital Single Lens Reflex)
3) Mirrorless (these are essentially a hybrid of the first two categories)
Despite their differences, all of the cameras above incorporate the three design elements previously mentioned, 1) a lens, 2) a sensor (the capture media) and 3) controls. Having established theses basics let us turn to how each of these components factor into our choice of a digital camera.
تعليقات
إرسال تعليق