How Does a Digital Camera Work?
A digital camera works similar to film camera in that light comes in through the lens and is captured to produce a picture.
The way the image is captured is what makes a digital camera very different than a film camera.
On a film camera, you press the shutter button which opens the shutter letting in the light.
The light entering the lens is exposed to the film and causes chemical reactions on the film to create your photograph.
In a digital camera the image is captured with an image sensor that converts the light rays into electronic signals which are then stored in a file in the buffer memory.
The light detector or image sensor is called a charged couple device (CCD) and is made up of individual light sensitive picture elements commonly known as pixels.
Digital cameras are often measured in megapixels or millions of pixels.
A camera with a 3000 x 2000 array of pixels on the image sensor would contain 6,000,000 pixels and would be referred to as a 6 megapixel camera.
When the light hits the CCD it breaks it up into the millions of pixels and measures the amount of light and color to come up with a number for each pixel.
Your digital picture is actually a long string of numbers that is stored on a file in memory.
The LCD screen on the back of the camera shows you the image that the CCD is capturing.
Digital photographs must be compressed or the file size would be enormous and take up way too much memory.
The most common compressed format is JPG which stands for Joint Photographic Experts Group.
The higher the amount of photo information is kept the better the image quality and the bigger the file.
The more compressed the photo is, the lower the quality and the smaller the file size.
The smaller file size makes for shorter load times plus you can store more photos in memory.
You do sacrifice quality however.
The fact that digital images are stored digitally makes them much easier to store, share and manipulate.
When you open up a picture in an editor such as Photoshop, you can change the quality of the photo by clicking on a setting.
When you do that it changes the numbers that the pixels are storing to create the effect.
For example, if you want to make the picture 10% brighter, the image editor would change the pixel numbers by 10 % to show increased light or brightness.
Some digital cameras have built-in effects and you can create a photographic effect in the camera right after you take the picture.
Something you can't do with film cameras.
The way the image is captured is what makes a digital camera very different than a film camera.
On a film camera, you press the shutter button which opens the shutter letting in the light.
The light entering the lens is exposed to the film and causes chemical reactions on the film to create your photograph.
In a digital camera the image is captured with an image sensor that converts the light rays into electronic signals which are then stored in a file in the buffer memory.
The light detector or image sensor is called a charged couple device (CCD) and is made up of individual light sensitive picture elements commonly known as pixels.
Digital cameras are often measured in megapixels or millions of pixels.
A camera with a 3000 x 2000 array of pixels on the image sensor would contain 6,000,000 pixels and would be referred to as a 6 megapixel camera.
When the light hits the CCD it breaks it up into the millions of pixels and measures the amount of light and color to come up with a number for each pixel.
Your digital picture is actually a long string of numbers that is stored on a file in memory.
The LCD screen on the back of the camera shows you the image that the CCD is capturing.
Digital photographs must be compressed or the file size would be enormous and take up way too much memory.
The most common compressed format is JPG which stands for Joint Photographic Experts Group.
The higher the amount of photo information is kept the better the image quality and the bigger the file.
The more compressed the photo is, the lower the quality and the smaller the file size.
The smaller file size makes for shorter load times plus you can store more photos in memory.
You do sacrifice quality however.
The fact that digital images are stored digitally makes them much easier to store, share and manipulate.
When you open up a picture in an editor such as Photoshop, you can change the quality of the photo by clicking on a setting.
When you do that it changes the numbers that the pixels are storing to create the effect.
For example, if you want to make the picture 10% brighter, the image editor would change the pixel numbers by 10 % to show increased light or brightness.
Some digital cameras have built-in effects and you can create a photographic effect in the camera right after you take the picture.
Something you can't do with film cameras.
