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Both types fit in your hands, have a lens, viewfinder, and a flash. |
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They have auto-focus and exposure, so you can just point and click. |
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They often have a zoom lens, going from mild wide-angle to mild telephoto. |
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Digital cameras store their images on electronic cards or disks, which can be reused once the pictures are copied or deemed to be not worthy of keeping. |
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Digital cameras let you choose the resolution of the pictures you take. The resolution (number of pixels that make up the image) can determine the amount of memory each picture takes up on the storage card or disk. You can usually choose to take many low-resolution images or fewer high resolution. Cameras like the ones I use can often store over 100 low-res 640x480 images on one memory card. |
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Digital cameras usually have display screens that let you (and those around you if you wish) look at the photographs immediately. That way, you get to see if the picture came out as you wanted. The display also gives those around you the fun of instant photography. As users of Polaroid cameras have found out, this fun is appreciated by others at a party or event. |
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You can copy the picture directly from the digital camera into your computer very quickly and easily, so you can use them right away and with much less trouble than with film. There is no scanning. Some digital cameras store directly onto floppy disks (very convenient, but limits the number of pictures and battery life). Some memory cards can go into adapters that you can read in your floppy drive. Almost all of the cameras can be connected to your computer by a serial cable (limited in speed by the serial port). Some can be connected with a USB connector (faster). I find the "memory card in the laptop PCMCIA card slot adapter" the quickest and best for my purposes. |