Many people have given up traditional cameras and moved to digital photography, where there is no film to thread and no driving to the camera store or pharmacy to drop off your photos to be developed.
When you're done shooting, you simply transfer your photos to your computer. There, you can edit them or e-mail them to friends. You can even transfer your photos to a special Web site that allows you to easily share photos.
Digital cameras, instead of exposing chemically treated film to light, have sensors that turn light into electrical charges. These signals are are stored on media such as Flash cards (in variety such as CompactFlash, SmartMemory and other formats), memory sticks or mini-CDs.
Many digital cameras have highly automated point-and-shoot features that are able to adjust focus and other settings to account for lighting conditions, as well as the distance the person or object is from you.
Automatic exposure control is a related function. This capability measures the brightness of the light and adjusts the aperture -- the opening in a camera's lens -- to compensate. The larger the aperture, the more the light that gets in. The smaller the aperture, the less the light enters. This feature is especially helpful on sunny days, when the capability of your digital camera to reduce the aperture means that you probably will not get an overexposed shot with streaks of light.
Similarly, when shooting on a gloomy day, the aperture will open to admit the amount of light you will need to make the picture clearer.
When you shop for digital cameras, you will hear the term "pixels" a lot. Pixels stand for "picture elements," which are tiny bits of visual information in the photo. These tiny bits comprise your photograph. The fewer pixels there are, the more your image will degrade in quality when you blow it up on screen or convert it to a "hard copy."
In camera-speak, "mega" means million. A 2 or 3 megapixel capability is fairly standard for today's market, but there are more-expensive models that capture 5 and 6 megapixels.
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