digital photography

Digital photography is a form of photography that uses an array of electronic photodetectors to capture the image focused by the lens, as opposed to an exposure on photographic film. The captured image is then stored as a computer file ready for digital processing, viewing, digital publishing or printing. Until the advent of such technology, photographs were made by exposing light sensitive photographic film, and used chemical photographic processing to develop and stabilize the image. By contrast, digital photographs can be displayed, printed, stored, manipulated, transmitted, and archived using digital and computer techniques, without chemical processing. Digital photography is one of several forms of digital imaging. Digital images are also created by non-photographic equipment such as computer tomography scanners and radio telescopes. Digital images can also be made by scanning conventional photographic images.

Digital photography has many advantages over traditional film photography. Digital photos are convenient, allow you to see the results instantly, don't require the costs of film and developing, and are suitable for software editing and uploading to the Internet. While shooting on film will always have a place in the world of photography, digital models have taken over the consumer camera market almost completely. Just five years ago, buying a digital camera that could take photos of the same visual quality as a film camera could cost more than $1,000. But prices have dropped tremendously, and camera quality has increased. Today cameras in the $500 range are near-professional quality, and all but the cheapest digital cameras produce decent looking images.

Learn More Digital Cameras Digital Camera Quiz TreeHugger.com: Digital Picture Frames There are also many additional features available on digital cameras, including image stabilization, on-board image editing, color correction functions, auto-bracketing and burst modes. A lot of these can be handled by image editing software, and so they can be unnecessary (and often inferior) when built into a camera. Burst mode, macro mode and image stabilization are probably the most useful extra features, but the best way to find out which camera is best for you is to explore any of the numerous digital photography magazines and Web sites that offer comparisons and user reviews of hundreds of different cameras. If you own or are planning to buy a digital camera, this article will take you beyond point-and-shoot and help you get more out of it. See the next page to get started.

Many camera phones and most digital cameras use memory cards having flash memory to store image data. The majority of cards for separate cameras are SD format; many are CompactFlash and the other formats are rare. XQD card format is the latest form of storage medium. Modern digital cameras internal memory for a limited capacity for pictures that can be transferred to or from the card or through the camera's
connections; even without a memory card inserted into the camera.

 Memory cards allow for vast numbers of photos to be taken, requiring attention only when the memory card has exhausted its free space. For most users this translates into dozens to hundreds of quality photos to be stored on the same memory card. Transferring the images is also possible for archival or personal use to another medium as required by the photographer.