Digital Camera tips and advice

What Is A Compact Digital Camera?

A digital camera is an electronic device that is used to capture photographs in electronic form rather than using traditional film.

The digital camera has moved the game on from just being a one use device. Digital cameras, like so many other modern devices, are multifunctional.

As well as taking still pictures digital cameras can now record sound and video in addition to taking photographs although professional digital cameras are still dedicated photographic devices.

Ordinary Compact Cameras

Compact cameras used to be simple point and shoot devices that you literally pointed at the subject and pressed the shutter button. Nothing complicated, idiot proof photography.

Nowadays the compact digital camera comes in several flavours. It is a bit like mobile phones, there are so many options to choose from that it is quicker to filter out the features you don’t want, to get to the digital cameras offering the features you do.

Ultimately you can be guided by price a straightforward point and shoot digital camera can be bought for easily under £100.

Compact Cameras Plus

If your needs are more demanding then you have a very wide choice indeed. You only need to look at the ranges offered by Canon, Nikon, Fuji and Panasonic to see what has been made possible with modern electronics.

Here are some of the features a digital camera can now provide:

• 10 megapixel resolution for ultra-sharp images
• built-in 12x zoom lenses for long distance work
• eliminating camera shake that blurs your picture
• large 3 inch LCD screens for you to view your digital photos
• special models to capture pictures in very low light conditions
• Wi-fi connectivity to transmit your pictures
• video capture

A ‘prosumer’ or high end digital camera

Prosumer cameras or extended zoom cameras are usually high-end cameras that closely resemble SLR or professional cameras.

They contain some of the same features though the accent is more on the customer and are therefore known as prosumer cameras where ‘pro’ is derived from the word professional and ‘sumer’ from consumer.

Such a camera has a large optical zoom lens and is often marketed as SLR cameras though that is more out of confusion than anything else. The lens is not actually interchangeable as is usually the case with an SLR digital camera.

Digital Camera Image Storage and Viewing

A digital camera captures photographs in digital format and usually uses a flash memory card for storing and transferring still photographs that may also include a video function.

A digital camera usually has a rear LCD to view images which makes it a cinch to delete any unsuccessful pictures to save storage space on the memory card.

The quality of the image a digital camera creates is measured in megapixels. Generally the higher the figure, the better the quality of the image. Most compact cameras start at 6 megapixels resolution now which is fine for printing images up to A4 size.