No wonder digital pictures, with 0.3 percent as many pixels, are comparatively crude. The bigger the CCD chip, the greater the number of pixels. But larger chips are much more expensive to produce, and bigger CCDs mean bigger files that need more memory. Still, devotees like the ease and the speed of digital cameras, which are about as hard to learn as an Instamatic. You can decide frame by frame to shoot at the highest resolution or scale back.
Low resolution is adequate for E-mail, but high resolution is best for newsletters or cards.
When you press the shutter button, the light meter and automatic-focus mechanisms kick in. The camera even adjusts for a natural-looking picture whether the light comes from the sun, fluorescent fixtures, incandescent lights, or a blend of different kinds of illumination. Since these cameras are related to computers, the amount of memory matters. The more memory, the more pictures you can take before dumping some into your PC or erasing them. Without extra memory, cameras shoot from four to 48 pictures in the highest resolution mode and from 16 to 100 in the lowest resolution mode.