Digital camera basics - an elementary post for the very beginner

In this post, we’ll be talking about a basic pocket camera.

A simple pocket camera has the following main components that take and store the picture:

The lens is the main optical part in front of any camera. The light from the object goes into the camera through a small aperture behind which a lens is situated. Lens quality therefore matters a lot in cameras. You must have seen big lenses in cameras used by professional photographers. These lenses are very powerful in different qualities and are very expensive. A pocket camera usually has a fixed lens. There are two very important aspects relating to a lens assembly are the aperture and zoom. We’ll talk about these later.

The light then enters what we call the sensor. It is the real eye of a digital camera. It analyses various characteristics of the light entering the camera, such as light intensity, colors, specific properties of different objects in the scene, and so on. The size and quality of sensor decides how clear, focused, well-lit and detailed a picture would be.

The picture so taken then gets stored in the camera. Cameras also allow you to have external storing devices such as ‘micro-SD' memory cards. Pictures can be stored in various formats, the main ones being .jpg. 

All pocket cameras have a view-finder and a display panel on the back of the camera. There are a number oaf dials and buttons that allow you to change verious settings. Most cameras have inbuilt modes for night photography, scenic photography, portrait photography etc.  Most cameras have an in-built flash but it is usually not very effective under low light conditions.All cameras also have a 'USB' port that allows you to transfer photos to a PC or laptop. Some cameras allow such transfers through wireless and internet too.  

Finally all camras must have a power source. Mostly it is provided by batteries. In some models, special batteries are provided by the manufacturer, but in most other cases, heavy duty regular cells of AA / AAA sizes are used. Since digital cameras take a lot of load, re-chargeable batteries are more cost effective.

Many terms are often thrown at novices by camera sellers and others. We explain below some popular jargons often used in connection with digital cameras:

Pixel: It only means a small unit of measurement of a picture's size. Picture sizes are therefore measured in pixels. A 5 megapixel camera can take up to 5 million pixel sized photo. A bigger pixel size does not necessarily mean good quality of photo, as we will discuss later.

Zoom. Zoom means how big an object looks in a photo or when you look through the display panel / viewfinder. A higher zoom allows you to take good photos of distant objects that otherwise look small. However, the really useful zoom in  a camera is only the optical zoom, not 'digital' zoom that many cameras mention. When you take photos with higher zoom, the photo may lose picture quality and focus.

Macro. Cameras have a special setting called macro for taking photos of very small objects such as insects or a detail in some very small object. 

Auto-focus. Most cameras have the capacity to focus on their own, without your having to adjust anything. You just put the camera on 'auto' mode and keep clicking. That's why the pocket cameras are also called 'point and shoot' cameras.

More in the detailed posts.