Definition: LCD (Liquid Crystal Display)

LCD (Liquid Crystal Display)

The Liquid Crystal Display (LCD) technology uses light emitting crystals to display images. The crystals are regulated by a computer and are able to show various light colours, and intensities as required. This modulation allows an array of such crystals to form a display. Most modern DSLR cameras use LCD screens to display the images taken by the camera. LCD screens on cameras are in ‘True’ colour (True colour = 16,777,216 colours).

DSLRs, bridge cameras, point-and-shoot cameras and compact cameras all have LCD screens although not all have true colour displays. The sharpness of the LCD screen depends on the resolution of the screen. This is the number of pixels the LCD can display. High resolution screens appear on the high-end cameras and are more expensive. Owing to crystal size only a certain number of crystals can appear in the limited size of the screen on the back of a camera. The high-end cameras may have resolutions approaching 5 million pixels. However, compared to the ability of some cameras to image at resolutions over over 40 million pixels (40 Mega-pixels) there is inevitably a loss of some resolution in the image displayed on the back of a camera.