The advent of digital photography has, to a certain extent democratized the art of photography. It has never been so easy for the ordinary person to take and edit photographs. The first obvious advantage is that the photographer is instantly able to review their photo in the viewer of the camera. If the result is not quite what was required, then another attempt can be made on the spot. This eliminates wastage of expensive film which obviously does not offer an option to delete past mistakes.

With photo-editing software being widely available these days, the amateur photographer has access to editing options that they could scarcely have dreamed about not so long ago. You are able to crop the photo, alter the contrast and brightness, get rid of annoying red eyes, adjust colour settings and much more.

Digital photography makes sharing your photos so much easier. If you are holidaying on the other side of the world and want to send some photos home to loved ones, you have a number of options. You can simply upload your chosen snaps and attach them to an email and send them that way, or if you are a member of a social networking site such as Facebook or MySpace, you can upload your photos to your membership page and instantly make them available for your friends to see. The same process applies to videos.

Digital photography makes the process of creating a presentation so much easier. A Powerpoint presentation can be an effective way to present new ideas in an educational or business context, and to be able to instantly upload digital photographs into the presentation is convenient and easy.

Digital cameras are no different to other fast moving technologies inasmuch as their prices go down as the technology improves. You should have no trouble purchasing a 10 MP digital camera for under $200, and probably significantly less in some cases.

If you wish to have hard copies of any of your digital photos, it is a simple matter of printing them out on quality photographic paper. If you do not have the required equipment, it is cheap and easy to take them to a commercial outlet to get the job done. Excellent quality photographs will be yours to hold and keep just as was the case with traditional photographic techniques.

Your storage options for your digital photos are many and varied. Apart from simply keeping them on your computer's hard drive or printing hard copies, you can store them on an external hard drive, a portable flash drive, which is a good way to store them when on holiday, or you can burn them onto a CD or DVD. If you wish, you can use your social networking site of choice as a place of storage and retrieval as well. It is all so much more flexible than the photo album on the bookshelf, which was the storage method of necessity in the past.

The only real disadvantage that I find with digital cameras is their reliance on batteries. It is very frustrating to be in the middle of a day out and to be enjoying taking photos of the occasion when suddenly you see the dreaded red light telling you the battery is out of charge. Of course it is simply a matter of being prepared and having more batteries immediately available, but if you are not that organized on the day, too bad. This is but a minor complaint though, and I for one thoroughly embrace the advent of digital photography.