How digital cameras work A digital camera looks like an ordinary film camera and includes familiar features such as a lens, viewfinder and flash unit. Memory cards can be used and re-used like video tape. The number of images that can be stored on a memory card is related to the resolution or the sharpness of the image. Digital cameras use an image-chip to convert the picture into a series of picture points or pixels. The greater the number of pixels, the sharper the image.
Most digital cameras are mega-pixel models that create images with a million or more pixels.
However, digital cameras can compress an image so that it fits into a smaller space, allowing many more images to be stored on a card. The penalty is some loss in picture quality. Future Developments Digital camera performance is improving all the time, and new models are being launched on a regular basis. This means that whatever you buy today, will be superseded by another model tomorrow. But this is no reason to wait.