Digital SLR Cameras

Have you been to a National Park lately? Have you gone on vacation? Have you been to a kids' soccer game? Everyone is dropping their compact point-and-shot cameras for the larger, higher quality digital SLR cameras. These things are like your Dad's old Canon SLR but with all the bells and whistles of the modern tech age. Digital SLR's really became accessible to the public when Canon introduced the Digital Rebel (300D outside the US) in 2003. Canon was able to put a near professional quality camera in the hands of consumers for under $1000. Since then, Canon has put out five more cameras in the Rebel line, all starting under $1000 with a kit lens. A thousand dollars is still a lot of money, but it's a small price to pay for priceless photographs. The newest Rebel, called T1i (500D), even shoots HD quality video.

Besides Canon, Nikon is the other major player in the SLR photography world. Nikon has a line-up of similarly priced and similarly equipped "entry-level" cameras. The new D5000 was just announced, some would say, as an answer to the Rebel T1i. Nikon and Canon seem to bounce off each other, one answering to the other's latest endeavor. There are of course other camera makers worth mentioning. There are even higher end camera makers than Canon and Nikon who are pretty much unaffordable for the average user. I will deal more with the "affordable" brands in this blog. Makers like Sony, Pentax, and Olympus are real players in the consumer level market. Sony seems to be trying hard to break into the higher-end market as well.

I'm not an expert on the subject, I am just a DSLR fan. I have done a lot of research on the entry-level area of the subject and thought I would write some concise information for people who are curious about DSLR's and might be setting aside their compact cameras for a higher end, yet affordable DSLR.

Why?

Most people have made the switch from film to digital, but why switch to a 12 mega-pixel DSLR when you already have a 10 mega-pixel point and shoot? Are they really that different? The answer is yes, but there are of course some important considerations.

Money: Do you want to spend $500-900 on a camera body? (Body means just the camera part, not including the lens). In the DSLR world, the body is the cheap part. Lenses can cost thousands of dollars. Of course you can get cheaper lenses, but they won't be as good as what your camera has the potential to shoot. (I see this as a good thing, it means I can buy better lenses as I get more into the hobby).

Learning Curve: You can set a DSLR on automatic and get some pretty great results, but if you really want to use your camera to it's full potential, you will have to learn about things like : aperture, shutter speed, metering, depth of field, ISO, etc.

Size: DSLR's are large and some of the lenses are really large! The entry level cameras are a bit smaller, but they are still quite large, weighing more than a pound for just the body. Do you want to bring a separate bag for your camera every time you go out to take photos?

Basic differences

Live View: Up until recently DSLR users had to use their viewfinder to take a picture. For the last few years, “Live View” has been available in cameras. This means you can now compose your picture like you would with a digital point and shoot camera. Realistically, most DSLR users still don't use Live View and prefer to use the viewfinder.

Movie: Most DSLR's don't offer the ability to shoot movie clips. This is changing very rapidly, however, the very newest cameras have the ability to shoot video and the technology will definitely be available in all DSLR's in the next few years.

Replaceable Lenses: Lenses can be removed and replaced with other lenses. You can put on a wide angle lens for landscapes or a zoom lens for action or a macro lens for close-up, etc. Recently the camera makers have been introducing lenses that provide over 10x zoom in one lens. These lenses are great for the average user who wants to take one lens to the park or on vacation. 18-200mm is a common size for this range and is offered by both Canon and Nikon as well as some third party lens makers. The down side is that these lenses do not produce the highest quality images, although they are still quite nice.

Advanced Differences

Aperture: With a DSLR you can control how much light to let in through the lens. Higher aperture means a more closed iris on the lens. Different lenses have different specifications, but the average consumer lens starts at f3.5 and goes up to f22 or higher.

Shutter Speed: How much time the shutter remains open to let light onto the sensor.

ISO: Simply put, it allows you to take a picture with a faster shutter speed, but you sacrifice a bit of image quality. The picture will become grainier and grainier the higher the ISO. 200 ISO lets you take the same picture twice as fast as 100 ISO, 400 is twice 200, 800 is twice 400, etc. Most entry level cameras allow up to 1600 and some of the newer ones offer 6400 or higher. Since the sensor on a DSLR is much larger than on a point-and-shoot, the higher ISO is not as grainy as on a point and shoot. With newer technology comes faster ISO that still offer usable pictures. Entry level SLR's can take 400 ISO pictures that are quite good quality, even 800 and 1600 can be used with a little noise reduction software.

Depth of Field: The amount of the picture that is in focus (from foreground to background). A picture can be taken to have a large depth of field (everything in focus), or a shallow depth of field (only one small part in focus).

Metering: Cameras take a reading just before you take the picture so that they know how to set the aperture, shutter speed, etc., but sometimes you want to take a picture that the camera can't figure out how to meter, so you can change how it meters. An classic example of this is a picture of a person standing with their back to the sun. The default meter setting would make the persons face too dark. With a little know how, you could change the metering or add a little flash.

Flash: You can determine how much to flash if at all. You can even buy an external flash that mounts on the top of the camera for when you need more distance out of your flash.

Breakdown for entry level DSLR's

Canon and Nikon: Canon and Nikon are the most commonly seen cameras hanging around someones neck, from the wedding photographer or professional sports photographer to the mom at the soccer game. There are reasons they are so common. Canon offers a very high quality camera for the price in the Rebel line of cameras. Nikon has the D60 and the new D5000. The newer models have nice big LCD screens for reviewing photos. They can shoot pretty well at high ISO (for fast action or low-light photography). They have many of the professional features and functions. Canon Rebels are compatible with all of the EF lenses that Canon makes for their very expensive cameras as well as the EF-S lenses made for the more entry level and semi-professional cameras. Nikons are a little more compatible with older lenses, but some of the newer high quality lenses are not compatible with the entry level cameras as far as I understand. The most important thing, I think, is that they are good at keeping the price affordable while offering high quality. The new Rebel which will be available in May is supposed to be priced at $899 with a kit lens.

The biggest con, I think, is that they don't offer in-body image stabilization. Both Canon and Nikon as far as I know, do not offer body stabilization on any of their DSLR's. They offer stabilization in many of their lenses (at a cost). The argument is that lens stabilization is better. While this is probably true, neither company offers their full line of lenses in IS (Canon - Image stabilization) or VR (Nikon - Vibration Reduction).

Sony, Pentax and Olympus: These camera makers offer in-body stabilization. This is probably better for entry level users who are not planning to purchase many expensive lenses. The con for many of these cameras is that there are fewer available lenses. They also tend to not do as well at higher ISO. Picture quality is hard to rate since it depends on the camera and lens used.