Digital Cameras Demystified

Live at Panasonic Product Expo

Special Guest:

Doug Borbath

Product Manager, Imaging Group

Panasonic Canada

3 Components of a Digital Camera:

1) The Lens
- How well the light is directed through the lens.
- Lens elements with different shapes, work together to bend the light so it hits the CCD properly.

2) The CCD
- Charge Coupled Device.
- Element that captures the light.
- Determines the color.

3) The Image Processing Engine
- Takes the RAW image converst into a specified format such as JPEG.
- The faster the processor, the faster the camera can be ready to take another photo.

Type of Digital Camera:
1) Point & Shoot
- Most common digital camera.
- Designed to photograph with minimal user intervention.
- Small form-factor.
- $200 to $600 USD

2) SLR - Single Lens Reflex
- Better photo quility
- $600 to $3000 USD
- RAW image: what the CCD sees before any processing or compression is applied.

Panasonic Lumix DMC-TZ1:
- Point & Shoot
- 10x Optical Zoom
- Optical Image Stabilizler
- Lumix DMC-TZ1S
- Lumix DMC-TZ1K

Panasonic Lumix FZ-30:
- Point & Shoot
- 12x Optical Zoom
- Optical Image Stabilizler
- Many point & shoot models DO offer manual control, but it's usually buried in a menu.
- Optical Image Stabilizer: compinsates for any shake while taking the photograph.

For more on Optical Image Stabilization see Lab Rats episode 3.