Digital cameras capture and store images electronically using digital memory, rather than chemically (film stores images using a chemical process).
JPL labs developed the first concept of capturing still photos digitally, around 1961 to be used to help astranauts navigate. Then by 1975 the first prototype solid-state digital camera was made. (See “Brief History of Digital Cameras” for more details).
To todays public, digital cameras are generally quicker, easier and cheaper to use than film cameras, because the cost, both in time and money, of buying and developing film doesn’t exist.
The technology is still relatively new, so advances in technology are rapid, and the price of digital cameras keeps falling while the quality and features keep improving.