I’m not expert, in anything, but I’m often asked for my opinion on things by friends and family. I thought it might be fun to put some of that down in print as it may be helpful to others. In this instance, I want to try to explain a little bit about digital cameras to those who are new to them. So, I’m starting this little series of posts to explain what I know about digital cameras and what you should know before you buy one.

I’m So Confused

If you’re not a technically savvy person, cameras probably freak you out a little. Digital cameras probably terrify you. If you own a camera its probably the simplest, fool proof, point and shoot camera you could find. You walked into the store bewildered, listened to everything the teenager in the blue polo shirt told you about the camera, bought what he told you to, and ran. You’re not alone, and you’re brave compared to the soles who are still using their 110 Kodaks or their Disc cameras for fear of getting digital.

I want to give you a little base of knowledge for digital camera so that at the very least, you can do a little research and pick the best camera for you. We’ll start by talking about what a digital camera is in the first place and move on through to selecting the one that fits your needs best.

What’s a Digital Camera

Unless you’ve been holed up in a Montana shed for 5 years or making furniture and churning butter on a farm in Pennsylvania, you have at least a vague idea of what a digital camera is. It doesn’t use film and it has something to do with computers or something, right? Its actually no crazier in concept than a film camera, its just different.

In a film camera, a chemical coated film is exposed to light through a shutter. The timing of that exposure or, shutter speed, determines how much light hits the film. Since everything around us reflects light, the film captures those light reflections in color or black and white to create a photograph. In a digital camera, the film is replaced by a Charged Coupling Device (CCD) or CMOS (depending on the camera) and a memory card. Instead of burning an image onto film, a digital camera records light in pixels and stores the recording as images on a memory card.

You now have a digital image instead of a film negative. There are a lot of practical benefits of a digital image over a film negative. For one thing, you don’t need a lot of space to store them. You can store hundreds of images on one compact disc. When you want to make prints, you no longer have to drop your negatives off at the photo lab and wait. You can go to your local drug store, pop your disc or memory card in a machine, view your pictures on screen and print the ones you want while you stand there. Sharing your photos is easier too. You can email a picture or post a photo on any one of the many free photo sharing web sites instead of lugging around a photo album. Operating costs are much less as well. You never need to spend money on film and although you still pay for prints, you choose which prints you want. There’s no need to print a whole roll of 24 or 36 pictures only to find your thumb blocked 3, people were making goofy faces in 6, 4 were underexposed, etc.

Once you get comfortable with digital photography, you’ll find that touch ups and modifications to your pictures are pretty easy to do. Not so long ago, only professional photographers with lots of darkroom skills could do things like erase skin blemishes or improve the lighting in a shot. Now, with relatively inexpensive programs, you can do these things and more to your photos.

In short, a digital camera offers you far more versatility today than a film camera. Regardless of your purpose for taking photographs you should consider a digital. Whether you just take pictures at birthday parties and vacations or aspire to breathtaking landscape photos, you can benefit from a digital camera.

Next time I’ll talk about the key ingredients you need to look for in a digital camera and what the hell they mean! In the mean time, feel free to post any questions you have in the comments and I’ll try to answer them as best I can.