Mobile Phones
Most mobile phones have a camera built into them. They have very small sensors and they aren't all that great in low lighting and poor conditions but they are great for everyday snaps and the best thing is you always have it in your pocket.

Compacts
Digital compact cameras come with a huge variety of specifications and features. They are mostly automatic, but a few compact cameras do feature manual settings. They way they work, technically, is similar to a DSLR but they do not have interchangeable lenses and only feature optical/digital zoom. Compacts are mainly used for personal snaps, not professionally.

Disposable
Disposable cameras are film cameras that are thrown away after one use. They are very standard and simple to use. Just point, shoot, and develop the film. These are not common anymore because of the growing popularity of compact cameras.

Bridge
Bridge cameras are more advanced than compact cameras, but less than SLR's. They have one fixed lens that cannot be changed, however they do mostly feature a large optical zoom capacity. Bridge cameras allow full manual control but due to their smaller image sensor they do have a smaller variety of ISO sensitivity compared to DSLR's.

DSLR
DSLR's are both the semi-professional and professional choice. They are the more technical and more advanced step up from the compact camera and the bridge camera. They are fully manual but also with an option of automatic, aperture priority and shutter priority. With one of these cameras the possibilities are endless. There is a very wide range of different lenses you can buy for them and there are a lot of accessories and add-ons to be used with them.

35mm
35mm cameras are the analogue version of a DSLR. They are very old and aren't so common anymore since digital photography came about. There are two types of 35mm camera, the fully manual kind and the automatic kind. The manual one you have no choice but to set the aperture, shutter speed and ISO yourself, while the automatic will do a lot of it for you whilst allowing you to make some changes. 35mm film roles allow 24 to 36 exposures. Like the DSLR, there are a wide variety of lenses available to buy for these cameras.

Medium Format
A medium format camera is another analogue film camera. The difference between this and the 35mm camera is a bigger film size, but this also means it is generally more expensive to shoot in medium format rather than 35mm and is also limited to a smaller exposure count of 8 to 32.

Large Format
Large format is the largest available film size, the smallest of the kind - and most common - being 4x5 inches. Large format boasts a higher resolution image than 35mm or medium format. The downside to large format is the time consumption spent on preparing the film and setting up the camera, and also the quite expensive cost of the film and processing.

Digital Backs
For medium and large format cameras, it is possible to attach a digital back which enables you to take digital images rather than using film as intended. Initially the digital backs were connected to a computer via a cable which allowed the photographs to be stored as and when they were taken, but newer backs were able to store images inside them.

Pinhole
While special pinhole cameras and lenses exist and can be bought, it is also possible to make your own pinhole camera from common household objects and packaging. Both film and photographic paper can be used to capture images. The pinhole lens only lets in light through the tiniest pin-sized hole and it is up to you to control how long you expose for. This is a fun and experimental process and is fairly cheap, especially if you make your own camera.

Polaroid
Polaroid is a type of film camera. There is quite a varied range of film available for these cameras, but the images are printed instantly from the camera as soon as the shutter is pressed - thus no need for any darkroom processing or printing. The images you get from these cameras aren't the best resolution or quality, however there are some fun creative techniques that can be done with the exposed film. The downside to these cameras is the price of the film, which has risen in recent years and averages at around £15 for 8 exposures.





Digital

• No need to buy film - digital cameras have sensors to capture images
• Quick and efficient - just charge batteries and go
• No limit to how many photographs you can take - so long as you have sufficient memory card space
• Captured images can be viewed on the camera's screen 
• Images are automatically stored on a CF or SD card which are then transferred directly to a computer
• The only money you need to spend is on memory cards, spare batteries and equipment - and if you decide to print any images 

Analogue

• You need to buy film before you can shoot any images
• You are limited to how many images you can take depending on how many rolls of film you have
• You cannot see your captured images until the film has been processed
• It is time and cost consuming to process film
• You need a lot of darkroom access - without access to a darkroom you need to pay to send your film off to be processed elsewhere
• You need a lot of equipment to be able to process and print yourself
• Negatives and prints are not guaranteed to turn out well 
• The good thing is that it is fun and creative - the fact that you don't know what to expect 
• There are a lot of methods and techniques you can do with your printing and your negatives in the darkroom to make prints more interesting
• It is also possible to scan negatives straight to a computer to avoid printing in the darkroom