Why Buy Digital Cameras? Word Count: 661 Summary: Technology development started at a very high pace during the 20th Century. Like many other areas of development, photography also saw major developments in its field. Photographic camera technology has seen a constant improvement from way back in 1913 when a 35 mm still camera was produced till 1985 when digital technology was first introduced in photography by Pixar. Basically digital camera is an electronic gadget which captures and stores photographs in a digital forma... Keywords: digital camera, photo, photographic camera Article Body: Technology development started at a very high pace during the 20th Century. Like many other areas of development, photography also saw major developments in its field. Photographic camera technology has seen a constant improvement from way back in 1913 when a 35 mm still camera was produced till 1985 when digital technology was first introduced in photography by Pixar. Basically digital camera is an electronic gadget which captures and stores photographs in a digital format without using any processing films. The first true digital camera was launched in 1988 by Fuji Company .This camera used a memory card for storage purposes. The latest models of Digital Cameras are also able to record sound and video. These digital cameras store pictures on a small device called CCD (Charge Coupled Device). From Digital cameras the images can be transferred to computer and the images can be edited with the help of software like Adobe Photoshop. Advantages of digital cameras Convenience of use: The foremost advantage of using the digital camera is that you don`t need to worry about buying films and changing the rolls. You can click as many pictures you want, transfer them to computer, have a close look at them and get only the good ones printed after editing them thoroughly. Edit options: The Digital cameras allow you to edit the photographs in the easiest way with the help of software. The color, brightness and contrast of the photo can be adjusted and the image can be cropped and resized as required. This helps to optimize the resolution of the photographs. Economical: Digital cameras are economical in the sense that they do away with the cost of films and the cost of processing. When pictures are taken in bulk quantity the cost of films saved works out to a considerable amount. Flexibility: You can view the photo you have just clicked on the LCD display of the Digital Camera and if you don`t like it you can retake the same. Disadvantages of digital cameras Quality of output: For professional reproduction purposes the conventional film camera is still the best as digital cameras cannot match them in resolution and depth quality. Initial Cost: The initial investment cost for digital camera is higher than the photo film camera. The cost of the camera for home use runs from around US$ 150 to $1000 whereas the professional models cost may go as high as US$20000. Slower Speed: Digital cameras take some time for storing the images which is unsuitable for action photography in which you need very fast clicks. Important features The digital camera quality largely depends upon its optic features, color depth, resolution etc. While shopping for a digital camera one should take care of following. High Resolution: Resolution of a digital camera depends upon its capacity to store the dots or pixels. The more pixels it can store the higher will be the resolution. Cameras with a capacity of 5 mega pixels or more are ideal for home photography while professional photographers may look for a capacity of more than 7 mega pixels. Capacity: The capacity of the digital camera to store pictures is also very important. The cameras have a built in memory capacity and additional memory card slot to store pictures. The cost of the memory cards is high but nevertheless they are very important to serve the purposes of storage. Bit Depth: This relates to the color capability or the capacity of a digital camera to reproduce colors. Good cameras are capable of handling 24 bit color which fulfills the range of the human eye. Optics and zoom features: A good camera must have optical zoom lenses with automatic flashes in order to produce better images. Display: A good LCD display is important for a digital camera as it allows the user to flip through the images he has taken. The digital camera is certainly becoming more and more popular in the modern era and is set to replace the conventional ones for all general purposes.