Types of Digital Cameras

Digital cameras are made in a wide range of sizes, prices and capabilities. The majority are camera phones, operated as a mobile application through the cellphone menu. Professional photographers and many amateurs use larger, more expensive digital single-lens reflex cameras (DSLR) for their greater versatility. Between these extremes lie digital compact cameras and bridge digital cameras that "bridge" the gap between amateur and professional cameras. Specialized cameras including multispectral imaging equipment and astrographs continue to serve the scientific, military, medical and other special purposes for which digital photography was invented.

Compact digital cameras

Compact cameras are designed to be small and portable and are particularly suitable for casual and "snapshot" use, thus are also called point-and-shoot cameras. The smallest, generally less than 20 mm thick, are described as subcompacts or "ultra-compacts". Most, apart from ruggedized or water-resistant models, incorporate a retractable lens assembly allowing a thin camera to have a moderately long focal length and thus fully exploit an image sensor larger than that on a camera phone, and a mechanized lens cap to cover the lens when retracted.

Compact cameras are usually designed to be easy to use, sacrificing advanced features and picture quality for compactness and simplicity; images can usually only be stored using lossy compression (JPEG). Most have a built-in flash usually of low power, sufficient for nearby subjects. Live preview is almost always used to frame the photo. Most have limited motion picture capability. Compacts often have macro capability and zoom lenses but the zoom range is usually less than for bridge and DSLR cameras. Generally a contrast-detect autofocus system, using the image data from the live preview feed off the main imager, focuses the lens.

Bridge cameras

Bridge are higher-end digital cameras that physically and ergonomically resemble DSLRs and share with them some advanced features, but share with compacts the use of a fixed lens and a small sensor. Like compacts, most use live preview to frame the image. Autofocus is achieved using the same contrast-detect mechanism, but many bridge cameras feature a manual focus mode, in some cases using a separate focus ring, for greater control.
Fujifilm FinePix S9000.

Due to the combination of large physical size but a small sensor, many of these cameras have very highly specified lenses with large zoom range and fast aperture, partially compensating for the inability to change lenses. To compensate for the reduced sensitivity of their small sensors, these cameras almost always include an image stabilization system to enable longer handheld exposures.

Mirrorless interchangeable lens camera

In late 2008 a new type of camera emerged, combining the larger sensors and interchangeable lenses of DSLRs with the live preview viewing system of compact cameras, either through an electronic viewfinder or on the rear LCD. These are simpler and more compact than DSLRs due to the removal of the mirror box, and typically emulate the handling and ergonomics of either DSLRs or compacts. As of 2009 the only such system is Micro Four Thirds, borrowing components from the Four Thirds DSLR system.

Digital single lens reflex cameras

Digital single-lens reflex cameras (DSLRs) are digital cameras based on film single-lens reflex cameras (SLRs). They take their name from their unique viewing system, in which a mirror reflects light from the lens through a separate optical viewfinder. In order to capture an image the mirror is flipped out of the way, allowing light to fall on the imager. Since no light reaches the imager during framing, autofocus is accomplished using specialized sensors in the mirror box itself. Most 21st century DSLRs also have a "live view" mode that emulates the live preview system of compact cameras, when selected.

These cameras have much larger sensors than the other types, typically 18 mm to 36 mm on the diagonal (crop factor 2, 1.6, or 1). This gives them superior low-light performance, less depth of field at a given aperture, and a larger size.

Digital rangefinders

A rangefinder is a user-operated optical mechanism to measure subject distance once widely used on film cameras. Most digital cameras measure subject distance automatically using electro-optical techniques, but it is not customary to say that they have a rangefinder.

Line-scan camera systems

A line-scan camera is a camera device containing a line-scan image sensor chip, and a focusing mechanism. These cameras are almost solely used in industrial settings to capture an image of a constant stream of moving material. Unlike video cameras, line-scan cameras use a single array of pixel sensors, instead of a matrix of them. Data coming from the line-scan camera has a frequency, where the camera scans a line, waits, and repeats. The data coming from the line-scan camera is commonly processed by a computer, to collect the one-dimensional line data and to create a two-dimensional image. The collected two-dimensional image data is then processed by image-processing methods for industrial purposes.

Line-scan technology is capable of capturing data extremely fast, and at very high image resolutions. Usually under these conditions, resulting collected image data can quickly exceed 100 MB in a fraction of a second. Line-scan-camera–based integrated systems, therefore are usually designed to streamline the camera's output in order to meet the system's objective, using computer technology which is also affordable.

Integration

Many devices include digital cameras built into or integrated into them. For example, mobile phones often include digital cameras; those that do are sometimes known as camera phones. Other small electronic devices (especially those used for communication) such as PDAs, laptops and BlackBerry devices often contain an integral digital camera, as do some digital camcorders.

Due to the limited storage capacity and general emphasis on convenience rather than image quality, the vast majority of these integrated or converged devices store images in the lossy but compact JPEG file format.

Mobile phones incorporating digital cameras were introduced in Japan in 2001 by J-Phone. In 2003 camera phones outsold stand-alone digital cameras, and in 2006 they outsold all film-based cameras and digital cameras combined. These camera phones reached a billion devices sold in only five years, and by 2007 more than half of the installed base of all mobile phones were camera phones.