Digital cameras function very much like conventional cameras. Both camera types need a lens with which to have the image that is a trigger that can be used to focus light into the camera and an opening to adjust the amount of the light coming into the camera.
Traditional and digital photography are different once the light comes into the camera. The traditional camera to record images on film. The digital camera will capture the image on a device called an imageSensor.
The image sensor is an electronic device that is composed of electrodes (known) as a photo sites. These electrodes measure the intensity of light. The CCD (Charge Coupled Device) image sensor is the most common available. Other sensors are CMOS and Foveon.
The digital camera gets its megapixel camera (also known as the millions of pixels) rating of the number of photo sites, the image sensor has. Each photo is linked to a pixel site in the final photo. Thismeans that a camera that has 6 megapixels will have an image sensor that is 3008 pixels in width by 2000 pixels in height.
The light that connects with the image sensor will be changed into electrical signals. These signals are then amplified and moved to an A/D (analog to digital) converter. This A/D converter will change the signals into binary numbers. These binary numbers are then computed by a computer that is inside the body of the camera. After the numbers have been converts the image result will be stored on a memory card.
Photo sites will only measure light intensity. They will not measure color. If you have a color photo each site must have a filter, the color is to be covered to create. The colors are green, blue or red, these are the three primary colors. These primary colors can be mixed to create all other colors including the color white.
These color filters are then placed on a grid. There are twice asmany green color filters, because it is blue or red. The reason is that your eye is twice as sensitive to light that is green. The filters are in a so-called "Bayer" pattern will be arranged. There will be a series of red, a line of green, a series of red (etc). This is followed by a sample of blue, green, blue, green, etc.
Remember that each photo site can only be used with a color filter. This means that you need to use computer processing to create an image thathas a full color spectrum. Each pixel is analyzed to produce a composite color after they have all been calculated. If a red pixel in the middle of the green and blue pixels, the red pixel be white. This is because, know what you get when you combine red, blue, and green. The name for this process is "demosaicing".
Once the demosaicing is complete, the image will be adjusted to the camera settings. Most digital cameras have an adjustable settingsfor contrast, brightness and color saturation. Once the adjustments many cameras will also add the sharpening algorithm to make the picture even clearer.
The last step before the picture then on the memory "consolidation". Most digital cameras use what is a JPEG format for compression. Compression reduces file size by getting rid of the extra data. The data can not be restored so that the JPEG method is a "lossy"Format.
Most digital cameras allow you to save all images as uncompressed TIFF files, also known as raw data. The raw data is what the photo site data before demosaicing process. The TIFF files can be transferred to your computer when you can use software to get it with most of the same functions as the camera process that takes a lot more control.
