Digital Photography is creative.
It brings new and exciting features to our lives.
It also comes with its own learning process.
Did you know that a tiny chip called "sensor"is behind most of the process to create a digital image? A digital cameras sensor receives and converts the light, produces digital colors, performs calculations and transmits digital image to a storage device.
How a digital image is captured: The way a digital camera captures an image is quite different than an analog film camera.
On an analog camera the image is captured on a piece of a film.
With a digital camera there is no film involved.
You are focusing your image to a rectangular area called the "sensor".
A sensor or a capturing device can register the luminance coming into a camera.
Upon registering luminance, capturing devices convert analog light (Photons) into digital information (Pixel).
How Digital Images Produce Color: Digital images are made up of millions of squares called pixels.
Pixel stands for picture element and it is a tiny square of color.
Picture elements are arranged orderly in rows and columns.
Pixels are arranged in an orderly fashion to form different colors: Sensors can register brightness or luminance of an image however they have no notion of color of the light.
In order to capture color images, picture elements must be grouped in red, green and blue.
Using filters and certain algorithms capturing devices mix primary colors to produce other colors.
Digital Photography is Faster than Analog Photography: The Major advantage of a digital camera is its flexibility.
In the old days, in order to view our photographs we had to print them.
Digital cameras combine both image capture and digitizing into one short and easy step.
Once you pressed the shutter, you've captured and stored your image.
This process and most behind the scene calculations are handled by sensors and their built-in "chips".
What Sensors do: When shooting digital images, you probably noticed a "pause" between when you pressed the shutter and when the actual image is taken.
This pause is known as the "shutter lag" and it is a time period when digital camera performs certain calculations.
Besides the "digitizing process" sensors perform various other jobs: For example they handle distortions from optics, fine tune focusing, calculate auto exposure, fix misalignment of pixels and adjust color filters.
With the help of built in color algorithm known as "Demosaicing" the sensor produces digital colors.
As a final step, before transferring image map to the RAM (Random Access Memory) a digital cameras sensor manages color balance and reduces image noise.
Sensor Types and what they can produce: A digital camera uses two main types of sensors.
First sensor is a chip called CCD (charge coupled device) CCD is an analog device and it produces high-quality images.
Second type is known as CMOS chip (complementary metal oxide semiconductor) and it is less expensive than CCD.
Sensor Size: The size of a sensor is another important factor for capturing digital images.
Full-frame Sensors comes with 24mm × 36mm sensor size.
Larger capturing devices have more room for pixels and produce less image noise than a small size sensor.
Sensor type is an important factor for your cameras performance.
As we mentioned earlier "shutter lag" is the pause between when you press the shutter and when the actual image is taken.
Keep in mind that if you can't notice the shutter lag you have a quality camera.
Using it you will not miss a great shot while enjoying other digital advantages.