4 Digital features

At the heart of every digital camera there is an electronic image sensor. Ironically, the sensor itself is not a digital device, and the first ‘digital cameras’ were in fact no more than still video cameras of the time: Canon's Ion of the early 1990s was an excellent example of this type. In all cases, however, the way that the sensor works is by converting light into electrical signals that can then be gathered up, measured and turned in to an electronic representation of the overall light pattern that struck the sensor. This pattern, when expressed as shades of light and dark (luminosity) and hues of different colours (chroma) is what our human eyes translate as a picture.

The operational details of a given sensor and its ...

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