Digital Camera Cables

All digital cameras, whether they are the smallest Point-and-Shoot type or full frame professional digital single lens reflex, often referred to as dSLRs, come with a variety of digital camera cables in the box. Most cameras have proprietary outputs, so it is important to have the correct cable if you need to replace a lost item.

The least glamorous but most important cable is the one that connects to the camera’s battery charger.

The next most important digital camera cable is the one that permits connecting the camera to a computer. Generally these digital camera cables are one of two types: USB, or Universal Serial Bus; and FireWire, developed by Apple Computer way back in 1986.

The USB cable is more commonly used with PCs running the Windows Operating System. All versions of Windows starting with Windows 95 up to and including Windows 7 support USB. The cable itself consists of a USB A male connector at one that fits into the computer and a mini USB plug at the other that mates with the camera. USB cables are easy to recognize because the end that fits into the computer consists of a flat paddle and is identical to the connector on flash drives.

The FireWire is targeted at users of Macs. Some PCs, however, come with FireWire cards, or can be retrofitted with FireWire controllers. When it was first introduced, the FireWire was much faster than USB, but since the introduction of USB 2.0 the transfer speed is pretty much even between the two types. Fans of FireWire still claim better throughput speeds and greater reliability, but for transfers between the camera and computers the difference may be measurable but not perceivable without a stop watch. The firewire connector that fits into the computer, when viewed from the end, looks a bit like a simple house with gabled roof.

Other cables that might be included in the box include S-Video. The S-Video digital camera cables permits displaying images directly on a standard TV, if the TV is fitted with an S-video input.

If your TV is HDTV enabled, you will need a digital camera cables that connects the camera’s FireWire port to an HDMI input, which functions like the S-Video cable to display images directly from the camera to the HDTV.

Most digital cameras nowadays include a video and sound recording. Cameras with this capability will include an AV compatible digital camera cables that allows transfer of the audio and video from the camera to a TV or VCR, or any other RCA compatible device. One end plugs into a standard headphone jack and the other into the RCA inputs.

An optional digital camera cables typically not included with the camera is usually referred to as the remote release. This cable is typically used when the camera is mounted to a tripod to trigger the shutter. Using a release like this helps achieve a sharper image by avoiding camera jiggle. Simple shutter release cables do only one thing: trip the shutter. More advanced models have self timers built into them or intervalometers that will shoot a series of images over defined spans of time for time lapse photography.