A lot of professional options for advanced users

For advanced users, there are a lot of professional options you can consider; such as SLR view finding and lens interchange ability. Digital cameras in this range provide much greater control over the image, both before and once it is captured. These options include shutter speed and aperture adjustment, and many cameras offer the ability to manipulate images 'in camera', such as cropping, and brightness and contrast adjustments.A further main consideration is what are you going to do with your images once you have them? The great beauty of digital photography is the simple fact that you can store them on digital media such as CDs and media cards, and view them on computer screens and in many cases, your television. You need print only when and those you want to see, or show to others. Digital photography also gives fantastic opportunities to manipulate your images using popular image manipulation programs, resizing them, altering brightness and contrast characteristics, and correcting problems such as red eye, or removing skin blemishes.Most digital cameras are computer ready, able to plug directly into your PC or Mac using USB connectors. They usually include proprietary software allowing you to easily and instantly manage your image files in photo albums or slide shows. Many digital cameras also include a video capture facility enabling you to take short motion pictures.What you want to do with your images after you have them can have an impact on your choice of camera. If you want to make enlarged prints for example, you will want a high megapixel capacity (also talked about as 'resolution'). If you want images for website use, you will want to get the best quality images that can be reduced in resolution without severe degradation.

Shutter Delay in Digital Cameras

In most cases this delay is small enough and not noticeable but when taking action photos, when trying to capture an event that just happened or when trying to capture a moving object this delay can result in a photo that just missed the action. When using a digital camera to take action photos you will notice that there is a delay between the time you press the shutter button to the time the camera actually takes the photo. A shutter delay is defined as the time gap between pressing the shutter button to the camera actually capturing the photo. There is no shutter delay in film cameras as in these cameras the shutter button is virtually connected to the shutter itself and holding down the button results in the camera taking a photo immediately. In digital cameras the shutter button is connected to a built-in micro computer and holding down the shutter button initiates a series of events that result in capturing a photo. When you press the shutter button the camera goes through a series of setup events in order to get all its electronics ready. Only when these events are finished can the camera capture the photo. The time it takes for the camera to complete these events can vary but is usually around one second or so. When taking subsequent photos there is an addition delay as a result of the camera compressing the photo and writing it to the slow flash memory.