
A SiPix digital camera next to a matchbox to show scale
A 'digital camera' is an
electronic device used to capture and store
photographs digitally, instead of using
photographic film like conventional
cameras, or recording images in an analog format to
magnetic tape like many
video cameras.
Modern compact digital cameras are typically multifunctional, with some devices capable of recording
sound and/or
video as well as
photographs. In the
Western market, digital cameras now outsell their
35 mm film counterparts.
[1]
Classification
Digital cameras can be classified into several categories:
Video cameras
Video cameras are classified as devices whose main purpose is to record moving images.
★
Professional video cameras such as those used in
television and
movie production. These typically have multiple image sensors (one per color) to enhance
resolution and
color gamut. Professional video cameras usually do not have a built-in
VCR or
microphone.
★
Camcorders used by amateurs. They generally include a microphone to record sound, and feature a small
liquid crystal display to watch the video during taping and playback.
★
Webcams are digital cameras attached to computers, used for
video conferencing or other purposes. Webcams can capture full-motion video as well, and some models include microphones or zoom ability.
In addition, many
Live-Preview Digital cameras have a "movie" mode, in which images are continuously acquired at a frame rate sufficient for video.
Live-preview digital cameras
Main articles: Live-preview digital camera
The term ''digital still camera'' (DSC) most commonly refers to the class of ''live-preview'' digital cameras, cameras that use an electronic screen as the principal means of framing and previewing before taking the photograph. All use either a
charge-coupled device (CCD) or a
CMOS image sensor to sense the light intensities across the focal plane.
Many modern live-preview cameras have a movie mode, and a growing number of
camcorders can take still photographs. However, even a low-end live-preview camera can take better still pictures than a mid-range video camera, and mid-range live-preview cameras have much lower video quality than low-end video cameras; that is, products are not generally optimized for both still and video photography, due to their different requirements.
Among live-preview cameras, most have a rear
liquid crystal display for both preview and reviewing photographs. Transfers to a computer are commonly carried out using the
USB mass storage device class (so that the camera appears as a drive) or using the
Picture Transfer Protocol (PTP) and its derivatives; in addition,
Firewire is sometimes supported.
The live-preview cameras are typically divided into compact (and subcompact) and bridge cameras.

A student taking a picture
Compact digital cameras
Also called digicams, this encompasses most digital cameras. They are characterized by great ease in operation and easy focusing; this design allows for limited
motion picture capability. They tend to have significantly smaller
zooms than bridge and DSLR cameras. They have an extended
depth of field. This allows objects at a larger range of depths to be in focus, which accounts for much of their ease of use. They excel in landscape photography and casual use. They typically save pictures in only the
JPEG file format. All but the cheapest models have a built-in
flash, although its
guide number tends to be very low, perhaps just 6 or 8.
Bridge cameras
Main articles: Bridge digital camera
''Bridge'' or ''SLR-like'' cameras form a general group of higher-end live-preview cameras that physically resemble DSLRs and share with these some advanced features, but share with compacts the live-preview design and small sensor sizes.
Bridge cameras tend to have
superzoom lenses, which compromises – in varying degrees, depending on the quality of the zoom lens – a "do it all" ability with barrel distortion and pincushioning. These cameras are sometimes marketed as and confused with digital SLR cameras since the bodies resemble each other. The distinguishing characteristics are that bridge cameras lack the mirror and reflex system of DSLRs, have so far been always produced with only one single sealed (non-interchangeable) lens (but accessory wide angle or telephoto converters can be attached to the front of the sealed lens), can usually take movies, record audio and the scene composition is done with either the liquid crystal display or the
electronic viewfinder (EVF). The overall performance tends to be slower than a true digital SLR, but they are capable of very good image quality while being more compact and lighter than DSLRs. The high-end models of this type have comparable resolutions to low and mid-range DSLRs. Many of the these cameras can save in
JPEG or
RAW format. The majority have a built-in flash, often a unit which flips up over the lens. The guide number tends to be between 11 and 15.
Digital single lens reflex cameras
Main articles: Digital single-lens reflex cameras
Digital single-lens reflex cameras (DSLRs) are digital cameras based on film
single-lens reflex cameras (SLRs), both types are characterized by the existence of a mirror and reflex system. See the main article on
DSLRs for a detailed treatment of this category.
Digital rangefinders
Main articles: Rangefinder camera
A rangefinder is a focusing mechanism once widely used on film cameras, but much less common in digital cameras. The term ''rangefinder'' alone is often used to mean a rangefinder camera, that is, a camera equipped with a rangefinder.
For information on digital rangefinders specifically, check the
digital rangefinder section in the main article linked above.
Professional modular digital camera systems
This category includes very high end professional equipment that that can be assembled from modular components (winders, grips, lenses, etc.) to suit particular purposes. Common makes include Hasselblad and Mamiya. They were developed for medium or large format film sizes, as these captured greater detail and could be enlarged more than 35mm.
Typically these cameras are used in studios for commercial production; being bulky and awkward to carry they are rarely used in action or nature photography. They can often be converted into either film or digital use by changing out the back part of the unit, hence the use of terms such as a "digital back" or "film back." These cameras are very expensive (up to $40,000) and are typically not seen in the hands of consumers.
Conversion of film cameras to digital
When digital cameras became common, a question many photographers asked was if their
film cameras could be converted to digital. The answer was yes and no. For the majority of 35 mm film cameras the answer is no, the reworking and cost would be too great, especially as lenses have been evolving as well as cameras. For the most part a conversion to digital, to give enough space for the electronics and allow a liquid crystal display to preview, would require removing the back of the camera and replacing it with a custom built digital unit.
Many early professional SLR cameras, such as the NC2000 and the Kodak DCS series, were developed from 35 mm film cameras. The technology of the time, however, meant that rather than being a digital "back" the body was mounted on a large and blocky digital unit, often bigger than the camera portion itself. These were factory built cameras, however, not aftermarket conversions.
A notable exception was a device called the EFS-1, which was developed by Silicon Film from ca. 1998–2001. It was intended to insert into a film camera in the place of film, giving the camera a 1.3 MP resolution and a capacity of 24 shots. Units were demonstrated, and in 2002 the company was developing the EFS-10, a 10 MP device that was more a true digital back.
A few 35 mm cameras have had digital backs made by their manufacturer, Leica being a notable example.
Medium format and
large format cameras (those using film stock greater than 35 mm), have users who are capable of and willing to pay the price a low unit production digital back requires, typically over $10,000. These cameras also tend to be highly modular, with handgrips, film backs, winders, and lenses available separately to fit various needs.
The very large sensor these backs use leads to enormous image sizes. The largest in early 2006 is the Phase One's P45 39 MP imageback, creating a single TIFF image of size up to 224.6 MB. Medium format digitals are geared more towards studio and portrait photography than their smaller DSLR counterparts, the
ISO speed in particular tends to have a maximum of 400, versus 6400 for some DSLR cameras.
History
Early development
The concept of digitizing images on scanners, and the concept of digitizing video signals, predate the concept of making still pictures by digitizing signals from an array of discrete sensor elements.
Eugene F. Lally of the
Jet Propulsion Laboratory published the first description of how to produce still photos in a digital domain using a mosaic photosensor.
[2] The purpose was to provide onboard navigation information to
astronauts during missions to planets. The mosaic array periodically recorded still photos of star and planet locations during transit and when approaching a planet provided additional stadiametric information for orbiting and landing guidance. The concept included camera design elements foreshadowing the first digital camera.
Texas Instruments designed a filmless analog camera in 1972, but it is not known if it was ever built. The first recorded attempt at building a digital camera was by
Steven Sasson, an engineer at Eastman Kodak. It used the then-new solid state CCD chips developed by
Fairchild Semiconductor in 1973. The camera weighed 8 pounds (3.6 kg), recorded black and white images to a cassette tape, had a resolution of 0.01 megapixel (10,000 pixels), and took 23 seconds to capture its first image in December of 1975. The prototype camera was a technical exercise, not intended for production, and it still existed as of 2007.
Analog electronic cameras
Handheld electronic cameras, in the sense of a device meant to be carried and used like a handheld film camera, appeared in 1981 with the demonstration of the Sony Mavica (Magnetic Video Camera). This is not to be confused with the later cameras by Sony that also bore the Mavica name. This was an analog camera based on television technology that recorded to a 2 × 2
inch "video
floppy". In essence it was a video movie camera that recorded single frames, 50 per disk in field mode and 25 per disk in frame mode. The image quality was considered equal to that of then-current televisions.
Analog cameras do not appear to have reached the market until 1986 with the Canon RC-701. Canon demonstrated this model at the 1984 Olympics, printing the images in newspapers. Several factors held back the widespread adoption of analog cameras; the cost (upwards of
$20,000), poor image quality compared to film, and the lack of quality affordable printers. Capturing and printing an image originally required access to equipment such as a frame grabber, which was beyond the reach of the average consumer. The "video floppy" disks later had several reader devices available for viewing on a screen, but were never standardized as a computer drive.
The early adopters tended to be in the news media, where the cost was negated by the utility and the ability to transmit images by telephone lines. The poor image quality was offset by the low resolution of newspaper graphics. This capability to transmit images without a satellite link was useful during the
Tiananmen Square protests of 1989 and the first
Gulf War in
1991.
The first analog camera marketed to consumers may have been the Canon RC-250 Xapshot in 1988. A notable analog camera produced the same year was the
Nikon QV-1000C, designed as a press camera and not offered for sale to general users, which sold only a few hundred units. It recorded images in
greyscale, and the quality in newspaper print was equal to film cameras. In appearance it closely resembled a modern digital
single-lens reflex camera. Images were stored on video floppy disks.
The arrival of true digital cameras
The first true digital camera that recorded images as a computerized file was likely the
Fuji DS-1P of
1988, which recorded to a 16 MB internal memory card that used a battery to keep the data in memory. This camera was never marketed in the United States. The first commercially available digital camera was the 1991
Kodak DCS-100, the beginning of a long line of professional SLR cameras by Kodak that were based in part on film bodies, often Nikons. It used a 1.3 megapixel sensor and was priced at $13,000.
The move to digital formats was helped by the formation of the first
JPEG and
MPEG standards in 1988, which allowed image and video files to be compressed for storage. The first consumer camera with a liquid crystal display on the back was the
Casio QV-10 in
1995, and the first camera to use
CompactFlash was the
Kodak DC-25 in 1996.
The marketplace for consumer digital cameras was originally low resolution (either analog or digital) cameras built for utility. In
1997 the first megapixel cameras for consumers were marketed. The first camera that offered the ability to record
video clips may have been the
Ricoh RDC-1 in 1995.
1999 saw the introduction of the
Nikon D1, a 2.74 megapixel camera that was the first
digital SLR developed entirely by a major manufacturer, and at a cost of under $6,000 at introduction was affordable by professional photographers and high end consumers. This camera also used Nikon F-mount lenses, which meant film photographers could use many of the same lenses they already owned.
Also in 1999, Minolta introduced the RD-3000 D-SLR at 2.7 megapixels. This camera found many professional adherents. Limitations to the system included the need to use Vectis lenses which were designed for APS size film. The camera was sold with 5 lenses at various focal lengths and ranges (zoom). Minolta did not produce another D-SLR until September 2004 when they introduced the Alpha 7D (Alpha in Japan, Maxxum in North America, Dynax in the rest of the world) but using the Minolta A-mount system from its 35mm line of cameras.
2003 saw the introduction of the
Canon 300D, also known as the
Digital Rebel, a 6 megapixel camera and the first DSLR priced under $1,000, and marketed to consumers.
Image resolution
The
resolution of a digital camera is often limited by the camera
sensor (usually a charge-coupled device or
CCD chip) that turns light into discrete signals, replacing the job of film in traditional photography.
The sensor is made up of millions of "buckets" that collect charge in response to light.
Generally, these buckets respond to only a narrow range of light wavelengths, due to a color
filter over each. Each one of these buckets is called a
pixel, and a
demosaicing/interpolation algorithm is needed to turn the image with only one wavelength range per pixel into an
RGB image where each pixel is three numbers to represent a complete color.
The one attribute most commonly compared on cameras is the pixel count. Due to the ever increasing sizes of sensors, the pixel count is into the millions, and using the
SI prefix of ''mega-'' (which means 1 million) the pixel counts are given in megapixels.
For example, an 8.0 megapixel camera has 8.0 million pixels.
The pixel count alone is commonly presumed to indicate the resolution of a camera, but this is a misconception.
There are several other factors that impact a sensor's resolution.
Some of these factors include sensor size, lens quality, and the organization of the pixels (for example, a monochrome camera without a
Bayer filter mosaic has a higher resolution than a typical color camera).
Many digital compact cameras are criticized for having too many pixels, in that the sensors can be so small that the resolution of the sensor is greater than the lens could possibly deliver.
Excessive pixels can even lead to a decrease in image quality. As each pixel sensor gets smaller it is catching fewer photons, and so the signal-to-noise ratio will decrease. This decrease leads to noisy pictures, poor shadow region quality and generally poorer-quality pictures.

Australian recommended retail price of Kodak digital cameras
As the technology has improved, costs have decreased dramatically. Measuring the "pixels per dollar" as a basic measure of value for a digital camera, there has been a continuous and steady increase in the number of pixels each dollar buys in a new camera consistent with the principles of
Moore's Law. This predictability of camera prices was first presented in 1998 at the Australian
PMA DIMA conference by Barry Hendy and since referred to as "Hendy's Law".
[3]
Methods of image capture
Since the first digital backs were introduced, there have been three main methods of capturing the image, each based on the hardware configuration of the sensor and color filters.
The first method is often called ''single-shot'', in reference to the number of times the camera's sensor is exposed to the light passing through the camera lens. Single-shot capture systems use either one CCD with a
Bayer filter mosaic it, or three separate
image sensors (one each for the
primary additive colors red, green, and blue) which are exposed to the same image via a beam splitter.
The second method is referred to as ''multi-shot'' because the sensor is exposed to the image in a sequence of three or more openings of the lens aperture. There are several methods of application of the multi-shot technique. The most common originally was to use a single
image sensor with three filters (once again red, green and blue) passed in front of the sensor in sequence to obtain the additive color information. Another multiple shot method utilized a single CCD with a Bayer filter but actually moved the physical location of the sensor chip on the focus plane of the lens to "stitch" together a higher resolution image than the CCD would allow otherwise. A third version combined the two methods without a Bayer filter on the chip.
The third method is called ''scanning'' because the sensor moves across the focal plane much like the sensor of a desktop scanner. Their ''linear'' or ''tri-linear'' sensors utilize only a single line of photosensors, or three lines for the three colors. In some cases, scanning is accomplished by rotating the whole camera; a digital
rotating line camera offers images of very high total resolution.
The choice of method for a given capture is of course determined largely by the subject matter. It is usually inappropriate to attempt to capture a subject that moves with anything but a single-shot system. However, the higher color fidelity and larger file sizes and resolutions available with multi-shot and scanning backs make them attractive for commercial photographers working with stationary subjects and large-format photographs.
Recently, dramatic improvements in single-shot cameras and RAW image file processing have made single shot, CCD-based cameras almost completely predominant in commercial photography, not to mention digital photography as a whole. CMOS-based single shot cameras are also somewhat common.
Filter mosaics, interpolation, and aliasing

The Bayer arrangement of color filters on the pixel array of an image sensor
In most current consumer digital cameras, a
Bayer filter mosaic is used, in combination with an optical
anti-aliasing filter to reduce the aliasing due to the reduced sampling of the different primary-color images.
A
demosaicing algorithm is used to
interpolate color information to create a full array of RGB image data.
Cameras that use a beam-splitter single-shot
3CCD approach, three-filter multi-shot approach, or
Foveon X3 sensor do not use
anti-aliasing filters, nor demosaicing.
Firmware in the camera, or a software in a raw converter program such as
Adobe Camera Raw, interprets the raw data from the sensor to obtain a full color image, because the
RGB color model requires three intensity values for each pixel: one each for the red, green, and blue (other color models, when used, also require three or more values per pixel).
A single sensor element cannot simultaneously record these three intensities, and so a
color filter array (CFA) must be used to selectively filter a particular color for each pixel.
The Bayer filter pattern is a repeating 2×2 mosaic pattern of light filters, with green ones at opposite corners and red and blue in the other two positions. The high proportion of green takes advantage of properties of the human visual system, which determines brightness mostly from green and is far more sensitive to brightness than to hue or saturation. Sometimes a 4-color filter pattern is used, often involving two different hues of green. This provides potentially more accurate color, but requires a slightly more complicated interpolation process.
The color intensity values not captured for each pixel can be interpolated (or guessed) from the values of adjacent pixels which represent the color being calculated.
Connectivity
Many digital cameras can connect directly to a computer to transfer data:
★ Early cameras used the
PC serial port.
USB is now the most widely used method ( Most cameras are viewable as
USB Mass Storage), though some have a
FireWire port. Some cameras use
USB PTP mode for connection instead of
USB MSC; some offer both modes.
★ Other cameras use wireless connections, via
Bluetooth or
IEEE 802.11 Wi-Fi, such as the
Kodak EasyShare One.
A common alternative is the use of a
card reader which may be capable of reading several types of storage media, as well as high speed transfer of data to the computer. Use of a card reader also avoids draining the camera battery during the download process, as the device takes power from the
USB port. An external card reader allows convenient direct access to the images on a collection of storage media. But if only one storage card is in use, moving it back and forth between the camera and the reader can be inconvenient.
Many modern cameras offer the
PictBridge standard, which allows sending data directly to printers without the need of a computer.
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. Additionally, some digital
camcorders contain a digital camera built into them.
Due to the limited storage capacity and general emphasis on convenience rather than image quality in such integrated or converged devices, the vast majority of these devices store images in the lossy but compact
JPEG file format.
Storage
Digital cameras need
memory to store data. A wide variety of storage media has been used. These include:
; Onboard
flash memory : Cheap cameras and cameras secondary to the device's main use (such as a camera phone).
;
3.5" floppy disks : Mainly the
Sony Mavica line of the late 1990s.
; Video Floppy: A 2x2 inch (50 mm × 50 mm) floppy disk used for early analog cameras.
;
PC Card hard drives : Early professional cameras, discontinued.
;
CD single or DVD : a 185
MB small form factor CD, most commonly seen in the
Sony CD-1000.
;
Thermal printer : Known only in one model of camera that printed images immediately rather than storing.
Memory cards
;
CompactFlash cards/
Microdrives : Typically higher end professional cameras. The microdrives are actual hard drives in the CompactFlash form factor. Adapters exist to allow using SD cards in a CompactFlash device. CompactFlash cards are much larger than most cards, but have an extremely quick data transfer time.
;
Memory Stick : A proprietary flash memory type manufactured by
Sony.
;
SD/
MMC : A flash memory card in a small form factor that is gradually supplanting CompactFlash. The original storage limit was 2
GB, which is being supplanted by 4 GB cards. 4 GB cards are not recognized in all cameras as a revision was made to the SD standard as SDHC (SD High Capacity). The cards also have to be formatted in the
FAT32 file format while many older cameras use FAT16 which has a 2 GB partition limit.
;
MiniSD Card : A smaller (slightly less than half-size) card used in devices such as camera phones.
;
MicroSD Card : A smaller yet (less than a quarter size) version of the SD card. Used in camera phones.
;
xD-Picture Card : Developed by Fuji and Olympus in 2002, a format smaller than an SD card.
;
SmartMedia : A now obsolete format that competed with CompactFlash, and was limited to 128 MB in capacity. One of the major differences was that SmartMedia had the memory controller built in the reading device, while in CompactFlash it was in the card. The xD picture card was developed as a replacement for SmartMedia.
; FP Memory: A 2-4 MB serial flash memory, known from the Mustek/Relisys Dimera low end cameras.
Batteries
Digital cameras have high
power requirements, and over time have become increasingly smaller in size, which has resulted in an ongoing need to develop a
battery small enough to fit in the camera and yet able to power it for a reasonable length of time.
Essentially two broad divisions exist in the types of batteries digital cameras use.
Off-the-shelf
The first is batteries that are an established off-the-shelf form factor, most commonly
AA, CR2, or
CR-V3 batteries, with
AAA batteries in a handful of cameras. The CR2 and CR-V3 batteries are
lithium based, and intended for single use. They are also commonly seen in camcorders. The AA batteries are far more common; however, the non-rechargeable
alkaline batteries are capable of providing enough power for only a very short time in most cameras. Most consumers use AA
Nickel metal hydride batteries (NiMH) (''see also and '') instead, which provide an adequate amount of power and are rechargeable. NIMH batteries do not provide as much power as
lithium ion batteries, and they also tend to discharge when not used. They are available in various
ampere-hour (Ah) or
milli-ampere-hour (mAh) ratings, which affects how long they last in use. Typically mid-range consumer models and some low end cameras use off-the-shelf batteries; only a very few
DSLR cameras accept them (for example,
Sigma SD10). Rechargeable
RCR-V3 lithium-ion batteries are also available as an alternative to non-rechargeable CR-V3 batteries.
Proprietary
The second division is proprietary battery formats. These are built to a manufacturer's custom specifications, and can be either aftermarket replacement parts or
OEM. Almost all proprietary batteries are
lithium ion. While they only accept a certain number of recharges before the battery life begins degrading (typically up to 500 cycles), they provide considerable performance for their size. A result is that at the two ends of the spectrum both high end professional cameras and low end consumer models tend to use lithium ion batteries.
Autonomous devices
An device, such as a
PictBridge printer, operates without need of a computer. The camera connects to the printer, which then downloads and prints its images. Some DVD recorders and television sets can read memory cards too. Several types of flash card readers also have a TV output capability.
Formats
Main articles: Image file formats
Common formats for digital camera images are the Joint Photography Experts Group standard (
JPEG) and Tagged Image File Format (
TIFF).
Many cameras, especially professional or DSLR cameras, support a
Raw format. A raw image is the unprocessed set of pixel data directly from the camera's sensor. They are often saved in formats proprietary to each manufacturer, such as NEF for Nikon, CR2 for Canon, and MRW for Minolta. Adobe Systems has released the
DNG format, a royalty free raw image format which has been adopted by a few camera manufacturers.
Raw files initially had to be processed in specialized image editing programs, but over time many mainstream editing programs have added support for them, such as Google's Picasa. Editing raw format images allows much more flexibility in settings such as white balance, exposure compensation, color temperature, and so on. In essence raw format allows the photographer make major adjustments without losing image quality that would otherwise require retaking the picture.
Formats for movies are
AVI,
DV,
MPEG,
MOV (often containing motion JPEG),
WMV, and ASF (basically the same as WMV). Recent formats include
MP4, which is based on the QuickTime format and uses newer compression algorithms to allow longer recording times in the same space.
Other formats that are used in cameras but not for pictures are the Design Rule for Camera Format (
DCF), an
ISO specification for the camera's internal file structure and naming, Digital Print Order Format (
DPOF), which dictates what order images are to be printed in and how many copies, and the Exchangeable Image File Format (
Exif), which uses metadata tags to document the camera settings and date and time for image files.
See also
★
Backup camera
★
Bluetooth
★
Camera phone
★
Digital photo frame
★
Computer printer
★
Digital camera memory media
★
Digital image editing
★
Digital photography
★
Four Thirds System
★
Live-Preview Digital camera
★
Bridge digital camera
★
List of digital camera brands
★
Mobile Imaging and Printing Consortium
★
Personal storage device
★
PictBridge
★
Picture Transfer Protocol USB PTP vs
USB MSC
★
Still video camera
★
Underwater photography
★
Andor Technology Scientific Digital Cameras
★
Webcam
References
1. Nikon Says It's Leaving Film-Camera Business
2. Eugene F. Lally, "Mosaic Guidance for Interplanetary Travel," ''Space Flight Report to the Nation'', pp. 2249–61, American Rocket Society, New York, October 9–15, 1961.
3. More on digital cameras Bogdan Solca
External links
★
Howstuffworks Digital Cameras
★
The first digital camera involving Kodak engineer
Steven Sasson.
★
Year-by-year developments up to 1998 and images of several types of cameras123e
★ Article about
hidden data in JPEG files produced by digital cameras
★
Digital Camera support for UNIX, Linux and BSD
★
USB Digital Camera HOWTO for Linux
★
Comprehensive digital camera guide: how do you choose your digital camera?
★
Architecture of a still-motion-/picture digital camera
★ Pages with Reviews
★
★
Digital Photography Review, digital camera news and detailed reviews, has a frontend to query the database for specific features which can really come in handy
★
★
Digital Camera Resource index of reviews of recent and old digital cameras
★
★
DigitalCameraInfo.com digital camera reviews with scientific testing
★
★
steves-digicams.com with lots of digital camera reviews
★
★
Logicamera.com awesome Canon, Olympus and Nikon digital camera reviews.