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Digital camera

A digital camera, also called a digicam,[1] is a camera that captures photographs in digital memory. Most cameras produced today are digital,[2] largely replacing those that capture images on photographic film or film stock. Digital cameras are now widely incorporated into mobile devices like smartphones with the same or more capabilities and features of dedicated cameras.[3] High-end, high-definition dedicated cameras are still commonly used by professionals and those who desire to take higher-quality photographs.[4]

"Digicam" redirects here. For the military camouflage method using micropatterns, see Digital camouflage.

Digital and digital movie cameras share an optical system, typically using a lens with a variable diaphragm to focus light onto an image pickup device.[5] The diaphragm and shutter admit a controlled amount of light to the image, just as with film, but the image pickup device is electronic rather than chemical. However, unlike film cameras, digital cameras can display images on a screen immediately after being recorded, and store and delete images from memory. Many digital cameras can also record moving videos with sound. Some digital cameras can crop and stitch pictures and perform other kinds of image editing.[6][7]

QX series "Smart Lens" or "SmartShot" cameras, announced and released in mid 2013 with the Cyber-shot DSC-QX10. In January 2014, a firmware update was announced for the DSC-QX10 and DSC-QX100.[53] In September 2014, Sony announced the Cyber-shot DSC-QX30 as well as the Alpha ILCE-QX1,[54][55] the former an ultrazoom with a built-in 30x optical zoom lens, the latter opting for an interchangeable Sony E-mount instead of a built-in lens.

Sony Cyber-shot

Kodak PixPro smart lens camera series, announced in 2014. These include: the 5X optical zoom SL5, 10X optical zoom SL10, and the 25X optical zoom SL25; all featuring 16MP sensors and 1080p video recording, except for the SL5 which caps at 720p.

[56]

IU680 smart lens camera from Sakar-owned brand, Vivitar, announced in 2014.[57]

ViviCam

Olympus Air A01 lens camera, announced in 2014 and released in 2015, the lens camera is an open platform with an operating system and can detach into 2 parts (sensor module and lens), just like the Sony QX1, and all compatible Micro Four Thirds lenses can then be attached to the built-in lens mount of the camera's sensor module.[58][59]

Android

Integration into other devices[edit]

Many devices have a built-in digital camera, including, for example, smartphones, mobile phones, PDAs and laptop computers. Built-in cameras generally store the images in the JPEG file format.


Mobile phones incorporating digital cameras were introduced in Japan in 2001 by J-Phone. In 2003 camera phones outsold stand-alone digital cameras, and in 2006 they outsold film and digital stand-alone cameras. Five billion camera phones were sold in five years, and by 2007 more than half of the installed base of all mobile phones were camera phones. Sales of separate cameras peaked in 2008.[66]

Connectivity[edit]

Transferring photos[edit]

Many digital cameras can connect directly to a computer to transfer data:-

Weather-sealing and waterproofing[edit]

Cameras can be equipped with a varying amount of environmental sealing to provide protection against splashing water, moisture (humidity and fog), dust and sand, or complete waterproofness to a certain depth and for a certain duration. The latter is one of the approaches to allow underwater photography, the other approach being the use of waterproof housings. Many waterproof digital cameras are also shockproof and resistant to low temperatures.


Some waterproof cameras can be fitted with a waterproof housing to increase the operational depth range. The Olympus 'Tough' range of compact cameras is an example.

Onboard (internal) flash memory — Cheap cameras and cameras secondary to the device's main use (such as a camera phone). Some have small capacities such as 100 Megabytes and less, where intended use is buffer storage for uninterrupted operation during a memory card .[85]

hot swap

(LS120) used in two Panasonic digital cameras, the PV-SD4090[86] and PV-SD5000,[87] which allowed them to use both SuperDisk and 3.5" floppy disks

SuperDisk

hard drives — early professional cameras (discontinued)[88]

PC Card

PC Card flash memory cards

[89]

— known only in one model of camera that printed images immediately rather than storing

Thermal printer

— printing images immediately rather than storing

Zink technology

— media used in the Agfa ePhoto CL30 Clik!

PocketZip

List of digital camera brands

Computational photography

DigitaOS

Magic Lantern (firmware)

Pixel shift

Smart camera

Video camera

Digital signal processor

Vision processing unit

Image sensor

Digital Camera Museum

History of the digital camera and digital imaging