At its very simplest description, a digital camera is a camera that does not record photos on film. However, in order to be able to do that, a digital camera needs a whole new system inside. There is nothing that a film camera and a digital camera have in common, except for the lens and the fact that it will record images.

A film camera depends on chemicals that react to light to create colour photographs, but a digital camera has millions of small sensors that record the colour that they ‘see’ on a chip, so that they may be accessed later.

A film camera does not require electricity unless it has a motor drive, but a digital camera cannot operate without electricity, which is normally delivered by batteries. The more powerful the camera, the more power that it will need.

Apart from these technical details of internal parts, the biggest difference between a film camera and a digital camera is in the composition of the photographs. Because a digital photo is made up of dots known as pixels which are recorded digitally, they may be manipulated by a computer program.

A conventional film image cannot be altered after it has been ‘fixed’, but a digital photo can be manipulated at any time. You just load it into a photograph manipulation program such as Photoshop and you will be able to transform all the yellows to green, brighten the lighting, sharpen the photograph, alter the contrast and a hundred more things.

As with all new technology, digital cameras used to be very expansive, but the price was soon recouped because there was no need to purchase film or have it developed into photographs. This is a big saving. However, the price of digital cameras has dropped so much that the technology can be placed into mobile telephones without dramatically raising their price.

The foremost thing to look for whilst buying a digital camera is the resolution, which is expressed in terms of megapixels – the number of dots that create the photograph. The more the better. At the time of writing, ten megapixels is about normal, but a professional DSLR camera might have 35 plus megapixels.

A digital camera needs a memory in order to store the images. The memory comes in two types akin to with a computer – it has on board RAM and a slot for an external memory chip, usually called a flash card.

It is best to have lots of internal memory but it is not essential if you use flash cards. The cards come in different sizes. The more megapixels your camera has, the more memory your camera will require.

If you would like better than a point-and-click camera, think about buying an SLR or in this case a DSLR – a digital single-lens reflex camera. These cameras permit you to swap lenses for extraordinary effects like fishbowl look, telephoto or macro photographs.

A DSLR camera with a standard lens will cost about $550 so will not break the bank, but will permit you to take professional quality photographs.

Owen Jones, the author of this article, writes on many subjects, but is at present concerned with tips for product photography. If you have an interest in photography, please go over to our web site now at Photography Studio Cameras