HP Photosmart R967

The cameras are divided in three categories: ultra compact, compact and prosumer. Ultra compact cameras are very small size, light weight cameras. Most regular point-and-shoot digital cameras fall into the compact category. Cameras with more advanced options (eg. manual settings, flash shoe, RAW image format, long zoom etc.) are considered prosumer (or pro-consumer) cameras.

Image ratio is the aspect ratio of the image produced by the camera and is given as the ratio between width and the height of the image (width:height). For most digital cameras the ratio is 4:3 (1.33) and for DSLRs 3:2 (1.5).

The total number of pixels on the elementary pixel sensor is often larger than the actual number of pixels used to create the output image. The group of actual pixels used are called the effective pixels.

Sensor size tells the actual physical measures of the pixel sensor. Small physical dimensions of the sensor may contribute to loss in picture quality (i.e. noise and dynamic range). Usually DSLRs use larger sensors than point-to-shoot cameras.

A CCD (Charge-Coupled Device) sensor will provide a sharper and more precise image, but is generally more power consuming. CMOS (Complementary Metal Oxide Semiconductor) sensors are more energy efficient, faster and cheaper to produce, and the technology is developing at a fast pace.

Image

Optical zoom works exactly like a zoom lens on a film camera. The zoom level is adjusted by lenses, which affect the focal length and magnification. Optical zoom does not weaken the image quality or reduce pixel count of the resulting image.

Digital zoom crops the image to a smaller size and then enlarges the cropped image to fill the complete frame. This results in a significant loss of quality.

Tells whether or not the camera supports saving pictures in lossless ("uncompressed") format (e.g. RAW or TIFF)

Modern cameras usually have a USB and/or FireWire connector, which can be used to transfer photos from memory card to a computer. Some cameras also have video and audio outputs, which allow the device to be connected to an external display (e.g. television).

Traditionally the ISO rating measures the sensitivity of the film, and the same sensitivity scale is adapted to digital cameras also. The sensitivity grows as the ISO Rating gets higher, and at the same time the noise level of the image gets higher.

Memory card is the subsitute of film in digital cameras, i.e. photos and videos are stored to the memory card. The main differencies between various types of memory cards deal with physical measures, storage capacity and price.