Capturing An Image With A Digital Camera

How does a digital camera take a picture?

You point the digital camera at your subject and press the picture button. The camera decides how it wants to shoot - the light, the focus, all that kind of stuff, is done electronically by the camera. Then the lens opens. The light comes through the lens, focusing on the imaging chip. The lens closes. The computer in the digital camera then takes that data that came through and converts it from light into a picture, which it then sends to the memory card that you take out of the camera, download and print.

What is a "lens"?

A camera lens is probably the most important single part or component of the camera that you own. Most people think a lot of times about buying a camera; they decide about which camera by looking at the features and then buy whatever lens is on sale. I think that's a mistake because the lens is clearly the most important part. It's the eyes of the camera; think about yourself and how you react with the world with bad eyes versus good eyes. The lens is the eyes; the better the eyes, the better the picture is that's going to be taken. Now, how does the lens work? It works just like our eyes do. There's a glass lens that focuses the light, and the better the lens focuses the light, the clearer the picture you'd have. Of course it focuses the light on the imaging picture of the digital camera, and it focuses the film of the film camera.

What is a digital camera's "sensor"?

The sensor in your digital camera is tantamount to the film . It's a silicon array, a silicon chip. The light comes through the lens. The light strikes the chip. The chip converts that light into electronic energy, which is then sent on to the computer, into the camera, which converts it into a picture that is sent on to your memory card.