What is a photo camera and how it works ?
A camera is a system of optical, mechanical and electronic parts which have on top a very important part nowadays called software, all working together to capture a scene and to produce a digital picture or movie corresponding to that scene.
Now let’s go a bit more in details, step by step and clarify few points:
The main parts of a camera systems are:
- Lens
- Body
A Lens mainly consist of some optical, mechanical and electronic parts:
- External Lens Body – which is kind of a barrel providing protection and guidance for internal parts.
- Internal Optical elements – used to capture the light and guide the light towards the body sensor.
- Aperture – used to control the amount of light that passes through the Lens
- Small motor and electronics – used to move back and forward the optical elements performing zoom and focus function
- Optical stabilisation, not mandatory – used to stabilize the image that is projected to the sensor
- Mounting interface – used to allow mounting the lens to body
- External buttons, controls (zoom and focus rings) and indicators – used to control manually the focal length and focus
A Body mainly consist of:
- Camera sensor – that capture the light
- Shutter – that block or let the light to reach the sensor
- Mirror and prism – in case of DSLR in order to provide view finder feature
- Digital Processor – that process the information coming from the sensor and create final digital picture or recorded movies
- Display, with or without touchscreen – used to review the pictures and control camera settings
- Storage unit – used to save the digital pictures or recorded movies
- Buttons and wheels – used to control camera settings.
In few words, the optical image is captured using the lens, it travels through the lens then ether Case A or Case B happens:
Case A: Reached the mirror and then the light beam is projected to a pentaprism and from here through the “viewfinder” reaches the photographer’s eye.This happens when the photographer just wants to see what he’s going to photograph and perform camera settings accordingly.
Case B: Once the photographer pushes the button (Shutter Release) to take a picture, the mirror flips up, the shutter open and the light beam reaches the camera sensor. The sensor then converts the optical light in electric signal’s, which signals are converted in digital signals (streams of 0’s and 1’s) and the camera processor builds the digital picture that will be displayed on the screen and saved on the storage unit.
Case A and Case B can not be in parallel!
Easy no?
I will go more in details explaining each of this, one by one, in the next posts:
I hope you find this informative and will help you to have a quick and easy start in photography journey
My very Best Regards
Ioan