Digital camera

Digital camera

A digital camera (or digicam) is a camera that takes video or still photographs, or both, digitally by recording images via an electronic image sensor. Most 21st century cameras are digital.

Digital cameras can do things film cameras cannot: displaying images on a screen immediately after they are recorded, storing thousands of images on a single small memory device, and deleting images to free storage space. The majority, including most compact cameras, can record moving video with sound as well as still photographs. Some can crop and stitch pictures and perform other elementary image editing. Some have a GPS receiver built in, and can produce Geotagged photographs.

The optical system works the same as in film cameras, typically using a lens with a variable diaphragm to focus light onto an image pickup device. The diaphragm and shutter admit the correct amount of light to the imager, just as with film but the image pickup device is electronic rather than chemical. Most digicams, apart from camera phones and a few specialized types, have a standard tripod screw.

Digital cameras are incorporated into many devices ranging from PDAs and mobile phones (called camera phones) to vehicles. The Hubble Space Telescope and other astronomical devices are essentially specialized digital cameras.

History

Digital cameras were developed in the last quarter of the 20th century, from predecessors including video camera tubes