Finally! Digital Camera Parts Explained

by E-NewsCast Team
August 29th, 2010

If you’re a gadget junkie that just HAS to know exactly how everything works, join the club. Curiosity got the better of me when digital cameras first came out. But rather than blow a fortune by unscrewing the cover and watching all of the parts fall out, I contacted some of the camera manufacturers and begged for details. Here’s what I found out:

Digital cameras are all pretty much the same when it comes to what’s inside. Sure, one might be bigger, and another might have a better lens, but when it comes to the essential parts, it’s share and share alike.

Looking first at the outside, every digital camera comes equipped with at least the following items; Some may have more.

1) Shutter release 2) Flash 3) Lens 4) Power switch 5) Viewing screen 6) Memory storage slots 7) Zoom control Cursor control 9) camera/disk-image switch, 10) flash-set button

But that’s the boring stuff. Us true gadget freaks want a peek inside where the springs and gears are. Alas, there are no springs and gears in today’s digital cameras, but there is some cool stuff tucked inside nonetheless.

Before we peek into that waiting treasure trove, let’s take a quick detour for some basic theory of digital photography.

Just like an analog camera, a digital image begins with light entering an aperture through a series of lenses where it is focused on film, in the case of an analog camera, and a semiconductor in the case of a digital camera. Now in the case of an analog camera, that’s all there is until you take the roll to your photo processor to be developed. In a digital camera, however, the fun is just starting.

Putting on the X-Ray Specs

Besides a shortage of springs and gears, there’s an amazingly small amount of “stuff” inside of a digital camera. And what IS inside is contained within some printed circuit board and a few IC devices. Not much to look at, I’m afraid.

That semiconductor that acts as film is called a charge coupled device (CCD) in most cameras, although some of the low-end models use a less efficient “complementary metal oxide semiconductor” (CMOS) chip.

The CCD is an array of light-sensitive diodes which generate an electrical charge when they are hit by light. The brighter the light, the bigger the charge.

The light travels across the chip and is converted from analog to a digital impulses. These impulses are temporarily stored in an on-board memory buffer before being converted to JPEG or RAW format by a microprocessor. The final image is then stored in the camera’s removable memory device for later viewing and downloading.

The bulk of the inside of a digital camera’s case consists of the main circuit board the flash charge capacitor and the DC power connector. Tucked away in a corner or under the board you’ll find the connectors for the LCD display and the memory storage device. As manufacturers are fond of saying: “Caution, no user serviceable parts are inside”.

Hopefully we’ve satisfied your curiosity and kept you from grabbing your jewellers screwdriver to remove the cover and take a look for yourself!

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