Digital Cameras
The digital camera is one of the most remarkable electronics feats of this century because it is so truly different from its predecessor. Conventional cameras depend entirely on chemical and mechanical processes because you don't even need electricity to operate one. All digital cameras have a built-in computer and all of them record images in an entirely electronic form. The new approach has proved monstrously successful. It may be decades before digital cameras completely replace film cameras, if they ever do, but they will probably account for around half of the U.S. market within the next few years alone. Basically, a digital image is just a long string of 1s and 0s that represent all the tiny colored dots or pixels that collectively make up the image. At its most basic level, this is all there is to a digital camera. Just like a conventional camera, it has a series of lenses that focus light to create an image of a scene. But instead of focusing this light onto a piece of film, it focuses it onto a semiconductor device that records light electronically. A computer then breaks this electronic information down into digital data. All the fun and interesting features of digital cameras come as a direct result of this process. The key