Digital cameras have become the camera of choice because they are particularly easy to use and provide a host of wonderful features. Digital cameras connect to a PC via USB so you can transfer your photos easily for archiving, editing, and printing. Digital cameras make it easy to share photos both online and in print. Digital cameras with resolution in the four to five megapixel range are capable of producing professional-quality photos.

Cameras

The major advantage of digital cameras is the potential to take multiple photos at no added cost and then printing only the best ones. Cameras designed for automatic point-and-shoot photos, with a 3x zoom lens, will serve casual photographers as well as committed hobbyists most of the time. Digital cameras with less than one megapixel are inexpensive, but they more often than not lack key features. Cameras with higher resolutions of 7, 8, 10 or even more megapixels give you the capability to create large reprints, or to crop and manipulate photos with photo-editing software without degrading them. All digital cameras have an in-built computer, and all of them record photos electronically. Since film still provides better picture quality, digital cameras have not completely replaced conventional cameras. All the interesting and fun features of digital cameras come as a direct result of striving to improve customer needs for high quality, low cost photos.

Pictures

Pictures are made up of small cells (also called pixels). Pictures taken at higher resolutions will look much clearer and sharper when printed, and large prints will look better. You can even select only the best and copy them from your computer back onto the camera's storage device so you can give a revised slide show of just the best photos. Once photos are in digital form, you can start to take pieces from a choice of photos and paste them into other photos. Digital photography now makes it possible to put all of your photos on the web and bore the entire world instead of just your friends and family. One nice thing about digital cameras is that you can show your photos on a TV set.

Memory

Memory Most digital cameras have provision for some kind of removable memory card for storing your photos. You should get as large a memory card as your camera can accept, as the memory cards that come with the cameras are usually not nearly large enough to hold a good number of high quality photos. Two common memory card types are CompactFlash and SmartMedia cards. Both types of memory are similar in cost and performance but CompactFlash cards are more widely used. How many photos will fit in the memory? The exact number is dependant on the size of the memory card (or other type of storage used), the exact type of camera, the compression quality setting, the camera's resolution, and even the type of photos taken. If you can't fit enough photos in the memory, you should get a bigger memory card.

Digital cameras are differentiated by their resolution—the number of pixels, or picture elements, the image sensor contains. Digital cameras give you extraordinary control over photos. Digital cameras are wonderful for learner photographers as the photos can be looked at immediately. Digital cameras normally require a computer to manipulate and print photos, but the technology is developing quickly, and photo printers that operate without a computer are now mass-market items. Digital cameras have high power requirements, and over time have become increasingly smaller in size, which has resulted in an ongoing need to develop a battery small enough to fit in the camera and still able to power it for a reasonable length of time. Digital cameras emerging popularity is attributed to the vastly improved photography experience they afford, through deletion, annotation, instant viewing, and control over reprint size and quantity.