Who Else Wants a Digital SLR Camera?
Only a couple of years ago, a digital SLR camera came with a price tag out of the spending range for many of us. That has surely changed - indeed, it is changing right now. Those advanced digicams are steadily coming down in price and becoming more affordable, while the list of features keeps getting longer.
Well, why would you want a dSLR camera in the first place? If all you do is snap some pictures of the family while on vacation, plus some generic shots of birthday cakes and X-mas celebrations - then maybe you don’t want or need one. But if you are really interested in making good pictures I’m pretty sure you want one - if you haven’t got it already. Or if you have a digital SLR then you may be already thinking about upgrading it!
Some of the strongest reasons for getting a digital SLR, as opposed to a simpler digicam are:
1. You Choose the Lenses
While simpler digital cameras have a non-interchangeable zoom lens permanently attached to the camera body, you can choose whatever kind of lenses you prefer if you have a dSLR. For instance, you may be very much into wildlife photography and therefore need some really long telephoto lenses. Or at the other extreme: you may be a real-estate agent and need to take pictures of interiors of houses, to show prospective buyers - then you want a high-quality wide angle lens.
If you get a camera with permanently attached lens, it will always feel like a poor compromise in case you are one of the people with special interests like these.
2. You Get More Speed
Generally, a dSLR camera has a larger image sensor than a simpler digicam. This means, among other things, that the sensor captures light more efficiently, so that you will be able to make pictures in lower light. For instance, my old Canon Powershot has a sensitivity range up to 400 ISO - and at that setting the image quality is noticeably impaired.
By contrast, a brand new dSLR camera can have an ISO-range up to 6400, with little visible effect on image quality. (Example: the Nikon D700, read more about that and other comparable cameras in my post about Three Full Frame dSLRs.)
What does this mean in the real world? Well, the difference gives you to four f-stops smaller aperture, or sixteen times faster shutter speed. Like, instead of needing to use a tripod for the shot, at 1/8 of a second, you can now shoot at 1/125 of a second - enough to capture most subjects, except the really fast-moving ones.
3. You Get More Control
In general, dSLRs are built for those people who are serious about what they are doing, and therefore offer you more ways to control your settings. You may for instance be able to modify how the camera sets the autofocus - or even disable the autofocus completely and use the manual focusing ring on the lens barrel, like in the old days.
Also, you can most likely get various accessories to your digital SLR, which are not available with a simpler camera; like special gear for extreme macro photography.
All this sounds terrific - but of course there are disadvantages too. The main one is still the cost. And a second one is that a dSLR is by design larger and heavier than a simple consumer digicam.
