Digital Cameras

Digital Cameras

Digital cameras have detached themselves from their analogue counterparts in the home user arena. They generally fall in one of three main categories: the so-called bridge cameras have established themselves next to the small, lightweight compacts and the fully featured DSLRs (Digital Single Lens Reflex cameras). Those who want a small and light device for the occasional snapshot or for taking a couple of holiday pictures without having to think about options such as focusing, light, contrast or sensitivity (ISO) should get themselves a compact camera. Bridge cameras, on the other hand, should fill the gap between compacts and DSLRs not only in terms of quality, but also in price. They are the right choice for ambitious amateurs and semi-professionals who would like to take advantage of their extensive manual control options and their superior zoom, as the optical zoom of compact cameras is very limited, while in the end the digital zoom is only an enlarged crop of the original image with reduced resolution. Real professionals who want to be able to handle different situations with various objectives such as wide angles or telephotos, should however move on to real DSLR cameras with interchangeable lenses. In any case, it should be noted that digital cameras use more energy than their analogic counterparts: the LCD monitors integrated in digital cameras are real "energy eaters" and reduce their running time considerably. Thus the best performers are for the most part the ones whose LCDs can be turned off.

Trends and development

The sheer speed with which the new camera models, with their ever-increasing pixel count, reach the market is incredible. Only a few years ago, cameras with two to three megapixels were considered modern high-tech and there were huge differences with regards to the features of pro-DSLRs. In a very short time, features skyrocketed also for compacts, going from five to seven megapixels up to ten and twelve, and the difference in features with the "Big League" cameras grew narrower. The megapixel race has always been a major sales staple, even though in fact it doesn't make any sense for the majority of photographers. This is due to the fact that, the higher the pixel count, the less space there is between pixels and the smaller the pixels themselves are. The result is the infamous and well-known "pixel noise": dark specks which manifest themselves as unpleasant and noticeable grain. As the ISO sensitivity goes up, so does the noise. Thus, in the worst case, a 10-megapixel compact camera can produce completely unsightly pictures which look much more compressed than they should but take up noticeably more space. To keep this problem under control, aggressive noise filters are applied which remove fine details from the picture, leaving an unsharp image with a huge size ratio.

Amateurs don't need ten Megapixels

Users that look at their pictures mainly in a computer or TV and that at most wish to have their holiday photos printed at a standard size are well served with five to six megapixels. Higher resolutions are not perceptible in these applications - only pros creating large-sized prints, for example for fashion or advertising, can make use of such resolutions. And as they certainly don't use a compact or bridge camera, ten or twelve megapixels are perfectly appropriate here. In such cases, pro photographers always reach for a DSLR. Apart from the possibility of using interchangeable lenses, these cameras have another advantage: their sensors are larger, which makes for more space for each pixel. The result is far less noise with the same amount of megapixels as the other two camera types. But technical limitations also mean that at some point a limit will be reached.

Future sales points

Therefore, the emphasis is shifting slowly from the mere number of pixels to other factors such as image optics and sensor and processing technology. In particular, image sensors in the future will be developed in such a way that photography is possible even in low light conditions without interfering noise; as of now, the electronics in the camera must raise the ISO sensitivity in order to capture the available light. New sensors are designed to ensure a brighter, light-sensitive image with new pixel arrangements and the addition of RGB filters to the usual pixels. Future buyers should also place a greater value on the processing technology, because of the increasing demands that today's resolutions and colour depth place upon camera processors. Every new generation of cameras faces the problem of almost any increase in the speed of the processors being repealed by these factors. This is why manufacturers are increasingly turning over to dual processors - similarly to what is the case with PCs. This not only increases the processing speed of the image data, but also the accuracy of colour reproduction. While with a single processor only 12-bit colour is possible, some cameras have already achieved 14-bit with dual processors - this represents a huge increase in colour depth: from 4,096 to 16,384 different brightness levels. A future digital camera buyer should thus pay attention not only to the pixel count, but also to the sensor and processor technology.

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