Digital Camera Features
| Feature | Digital Camera | Film Camera | Winner? |
| Resolution | Resolution varies between 1 megapixel and about 10 megapixels. | Depends only on quality of the lens and film grain size. | Traditional and digital capabilities are converging, with many results comparable. |
| Ability to review pictures on the scene | Pictures are instantly available for review. | Must wait for processing, even if only one hour. | Digital Camera, unless you consider a low resolution Polaroid instant camera. |
| Ability to touch up pictures | Pictures are easily touched up, cropped, and otherwise modified. | Must either have a darkroom or use a professional service. Alternately, have to scan in the photo to modify. | Digital pictures are readily modified without any preprocessing. |
| Price | Camera price is significantly higher than for a traditional film camera. | Moderately priced to very expensive, but less costly initially. | Digital cameras have lower operating costs, as storage media is reusable. |
| Convenience of mailing pictures while on the road | Pictures can be e-mailed from the road, while on a trip. | Photos need to be processed, then snail-mailed. You might get home before the pictures. | Definite advantage to a digital camera. |
Ability to take action photos |
Depending on the camera, recycle time between shots can be very slow. So can capture time. | Most good film cameras can take pictures as fast as you can advance the film. | Definite advantage to film cameras at present - with the exception of digital SLRs - but some better digital cameras can take 3 to 5 shot bursts. |
| Development | Your pictures are ready to use without waiting to finish the roll. | Pictures often stay in the camera until the roll is used up. | Digital Camera, unless you like finally seeing last Christmas’ pictures this Christmas. |
Image Resolution = Megapixels
Image Resolution |
Pixels |
Image Size* |
|
640 |
480 |
307,200 |
7,372,800 |
800 |
600 |
480,000 |
11,520,000 |
1024 |
768 |
786,432 |
18,874,368 |
1280 |
1024 |
1,310,720 |
31,457,280 |
1600 |
1200 |
1,920,000 |
46,080,000 |
2048 |
1536 |
3,145,728 |
75,497,472 |
2592 |
1944 |
5,038,848 |
120,932,352 |
* Basic uncompressed file size in bytes based on 24-bit color RAW image format may be different from each manufacturer.
How many pictures fit on a memory card?
| Compression | Resolution (in pixels) |
|||
2048 x 1536 |
1600 x 1200 |
1280 x 960 |
640 x 480 |
|
| Economy | 32 frames | 47 frames | 69 frames | 150 frames |
| Standard | 17 frames | 27 frames | 39 frames | 100 frames |
| Fine | 9 frames | 14 frames | 22 frames | 69 frames |
| TIFF | 1 frame | 2 frames | 3 frames | 14 frames |
* Approximate capacity based on Konica Minolta DiMAGE Xt camera using a 16MB SD (Secure Digital) Memory Card. Images are saved in .jpg compressed format; the level of compression is selectable, or uncompressed JPG or TIFF format (Your camera may vary).
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