It has been predicted that by the year 2005, digital cameras will replace regular film cameras! Digital Cameras have already become less and less expensive, and thus more widely available to the general public!

Digital cameras let you digitalize pictures so that they can be used on computers. For example, if you just graduated from high school, and you want to e-mail a picture of you in your cap and gown with your diploma to your relatives living across the country, then you could use a digital camera!

When you want to take a picture, first, you will look through the lens to try to get the item you want a picture of into focus. Then, you will press the shutter release. Once you press this little button, the camera will automatically focus on the subject and take a reading of how much light there is. This light is exposed to the CCD.

Most digital cameras make use of a technology known as CCD, or charge coupled device. The CCD consists of hundreds of light-emitting diodes called photosites. These photosites convert photons (light) into negatively charged electrons. As light particles enter the photosite, electrons are released. The more light there is, the more electrons are available. A device called the ADC, or the analog-to-digital converter, then measures the charge of the electrons, which will vary depending on how many electrons have been released, and then translates it into some sort of digital signal.

However, CCDs do not create color images. For color, the camera relies on blue, green, or red filters. Different combinations of these three colors can result in the creation of all sorts of different colors!

After you take a picture with your digital camera, you will need some way to transfer the picture to your computer. Usually, cameras contain some sort of removable storage devices, known as flash memory devices. These flash memory devices are used to store your photographs until you want to transfer them to your computer. You can think of them as floppy disks for your digital camera!

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Monitors

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