Anatomy of A Digital Camera
The Storage

There are two types of storage on your camera, the buffer (used to temporarily store the pictures before loading them into removable media) and the removable media, usually called memory, sometimes called "digital film".  Digital cameras store pictures as digital files, measured in bytes.   To see estimates of how many pictures you can fit on a storage disk, click here to see my section on resolution.  Due to continuing price decreases, you can now purchase a memory card with 4GB of RAM for under $29.00!  Even the high speed memory 16gb Compact Flash cards are coming down to below $80!

The most popular types of removable media are:  CompactFlash and Secure Digital High Capacity Cards (SDHC) 

CompactFlash is an older storage design that has an encased look to it.  It is much larger than a  SD card.  

Secure Digital (SDHC) chips are small, take less power to operate and have exposed gold contacts.  Do not touch the contacts or eventually you can have problems with the camera reading the card.

There are some other variants of the memory cards such as SDXC, Mini SD, Micro SD, Micro SDHC and Memory sticks.

To save money, if you take a lot of pictures & video and have a large megapixel camera, consider buying a portable storage device.  They are basically a small notebook hard drive in a case with a rechargeable power supply and a processor.  They allow you to download your photos from your memory cards onto the hard drive.  The sizes start from 120gb and go up to much larger sizes.  The costs range from around $120 to over $500.  There are many manufacturers, you can find several types at www.bhphoto.com

Return to Anatomy of a Digital Camera

Take a LIVE course in Sacramento with Andy