Digital camera device providing improved methodology for rapidly taking successive pictures

A digital camera device, that supports a multithreaded execution environment, with improved latency time between acquiring pictures, the device comprising:

• an image buffer to store digital images;
• a user-activated button, integrated into the digital camera device, for generating a user request to capture a sequence of digital images at the digital camera device, said sequence of digital images being stored in the image buffer upon capture;
• a first compression module, embodied within the digital camera device, for temporarily compressing, with a relatively fast compression technique, at least some of the digital images from the sequence of digital images upon capture, thereby freeing up available storage in said image buffer, wherein the first compression module operates on a high-priority thread in the multithreaded execution environment;
• a buffer to store a temporarily compressed image;
• a decompression module, embodied within the digital camera device, for decompressing the digital images that were temporarily compressed and, to defer said decompressing of the digital images until high priority tasks in the high-priority thread have been processed by the digital camera device;
• and
• a second compression module, embodied within the digital camera device, for compressing the decompressed digital images that were temporarily compressed more thoroughly than that provided by said first compression module, prior to storing the image in a non-volatile memory, wherein the decompression module and the second compression module operate on a low-priority thread subordinate to the high priority thread of the first compression module in the multithreaded execution environment.