Camera processors?

Question

Do ALL digital cameras have imaging procs in them? and if so is it necessary to have them in digital cameras? I was told shooting in RAW (the digital camera's negative) does not involved the procs and only pass the information direct from the camera's optical lens.

Answer 1

You have it right ... RAW records everything that the sensor "sees" and therefore are processed using some kind of photo program to be saved as either a TIFF or high quality JPEG.

As far as image processing, all digital cameras have them ... usually the more expensive the camera, the better the processing (when not using RAW).  P&S shoot cameras have less sophisticated processors than $8,000 DSLR bodies ... it just stands to reason.

There is some processing that goes on when the analog image information that is collected by the cameras sensor and the goes through the analog/digital converter so the information can be saved as a digital file.