Consumer Level D-SLR Cameras

So, the first question is: What is a D-SLR?
Answer: It stands for Digital Single Lens Reflex. In plain English, it is a digital camera, where you look through the lens that you actually take the picture through. (most point and shoot cameras have a separate view finder) You look down though a mirror that points out the lens. When you press the button (shutter) to take a picture, the mirror lifts up and exposes the image sensor (film) and that captures the image. Here’s a great diagram of how a D-SLR works from “how stuff works” (just replace the film with digital image sensor):


D-SLR cameras are great for photographers who consider taking pictures an art and think of it more as a hobby. These cameras allow for tons of control in how light is captured by your camera or how to compose your picture. You can also change lenses so you can take pictures in unusual situations, like super close up (macro) or things very far away (zoom). They also make it very easy to change the aperture, shutter speed, and white balance.

Consumer level D-SLR have a couple limitations compared to their pro model counterparts. First, they usually have only one dial on the camera body to change both aperture and shutter speed. This is a bit of an inconvenience, but still better than going into menus to change, like in the consumer level cameras. Also, they only have one display to show what your camera settings are (battery life, images left, aperture, shutter speed, iso, etc). This screen also shows the preview of your image, so it is has to alternate between different views when you want to change settings.

The consumer level D-SLR’s are a great entry point for someone who wants to learn more about photography, but doesn’t want to plunk down several thousand dollars to get started. I bought a Nikon D40 for around $600:


D-SLR cameras come in two parts, the body and the lens. You can buy these items separately, however, they also sell them as ‘kits’, which is a body and lens combo. You can also find them with multiple lenses, an included memory card, extra battery, etc. The one I got came with 2 Nikon lenses; an 18-55mm and a 55-200mm. This allows me to have a bit more zoom when I swap lenses. Neither of these are “high quality” lenses, but they do the trick for just learning.

This is the kit that I bought off Amazon.

Another good set of cameras to look at is the Canon Rebel. I don’t know much about the Canon lineup, but I’ve heard good things.

Consumer Model Cameras with Advanced Settings

These cameras are generally larger and more expensive than the point and shoot cameras. The reason to use the advanced cameras over a point and shoot is they allow the photographer to change some key settings:
• Aperture
• Shutter Speed
• White balance

As you become more advanced with your photography, you will begin to use these settings to get the desired effects from lighting, focus, and color. The Consumer Models let you change these settings (although they are buried in the menus of the camera). A great example is the Canon PowerShot A720IS (http://www.dpreview.com/reviews/canona720is/). It allows the user to shoot in Manual mode (set both aperture and shutter speed) to have more control over the images.

The difference between these cameras and their D-SLR counterparts are interchangeable lenses, and on-camera controls for adjusting aperture and shutter speed. If you are shooting a lot of pictures in changing light conditions, it is pretty annoying to have to keep navigating through menus to update these settings.

All in all, these are great for cost conscious photographers who want to learn photography, but don’t want to invest in an expensive D-SLR.

Changed the URL to blog.jordanldavis.com

To make things easier, I've changed the blog to a sub-domain. blog.jordanldavis.com.

Digital Zoom is a Scam

Cameras advertise that they have 15x digital zoom, which means absolutely nothing! All digital zoom does is enable the camera to blow up the picture and crop the edges. You can do the same using photo editing software on your computer or even through some print providers. (I’ll also cover this later). They say this is a big feature, and even advertise the camera as having tons of zoom. Don't fall for it. Let me show you the difference between optical zoom and digital zoom.

Here are some examples of optical zoom I stood in the same place and took pictures of this water bottle.

This image with 1x optical zoom:



This image is 3x optical zoom:



This is "real" zoom. You can notice that with the 3x optical zoom, the image is still sharp and clean. This is because it contains the same number of pixels as the 1x optical zoom.

Now, this is an example of digital digital zoom. I used the digital zoom on the camera and went to 15x:



You can see in the image, that it has lost some of its sharpness. Look under the red band of the label and you will see some jagged edges, as well as the lettering in crystal. The interesting thing is that I can produce the exact same image with the exact same sharpness by just using a crop tool on my desktop:



This picture just a crop of the picture above from 3x OPTICAL zoom. Notice how is just as sharp as the 15x digital zoom.


Please, don't be fooled by digital zoom!

Buying a point and shoot compact camera

If a camera can fit in your pocket, chances are, it is a point and shoot. These cameras are great for a night out on the town, or anytime you want to take pictures, but don’t want to lug around a heavy camera. These cameras are generally the least expensive and range in price from under a hundred to around $400. Most point and shoots purchased in the last couple years take pretty great pictures. So, you are probably asking yourself, if these cameras are the smallest and lowest price, why don’t I just stop here, why do I need anything more?

Control, control, control! As we start to get into more advanced features of the camera, it becomes important to be able to change different ‘setting’ that the camera uses to capture the image. The two biggest ones are shutter speed and aperture (don’t worry if you don’t know what those are right now, I’ll be covering them in later entries).

If you look at the controls on the point and shoot cameras,

you’ll notice that they only have an auto setting and a couple pre-sets.


They don’t allow you to individually change the shutter speed or aperture. The camera relies on its internal computer and sensors to make a decision about how these things should be set. It usually gets pretty close, but you can’t do the fine-tuning that makes your images look really fantastic. There isn’t an image sensor or camera processor that can make decisions as well as the human eye… at least not yet.

Also, interchangeable lenses! The point and shoots come with one lens that is attached to the camera. That is the only lens that you will be able to use. If you want to shoot close up pictures, wide angle, or super zoomed pictures, you are out of luck. Point and shoot cameras do have the ability to zoom, and usually say something like “3x optical zoom”. This means that you can make an image 3 times larger. However, ever other camera uses a measure of mm to denote the camera’s zoom. A typical zoom range for a point and shot with “3.8x optical zoom“ is from 28-105mm, but that is hard to gauge, because they have different starting points to do 3x. I’ll get into more detail about what those numbers mean later, but they are useful for comparison.

Also, remember that DIGITAL ZOOM IS A SCAM!!! More on this tomorrow.

Personally, I have a point and shoot that I carry around with me when I want to take some snapshots. It’s a Canon SD850IS.

I bought it two years ago and carry it around when I don’t want to deal with the bigger cameras.


Examples: Canon SD970IS, Nikon Coolpix S230, Sony Cyber-shot DSC-G3

Thanks to DPReview.com for the camera images above.

Buying a Digital Camera

If you are like me, then buying a digital camera is an overwhelming process. There are literally hundreds of cameras on the market and dozens of places to buy. Prices can range from under a hundred dollars to a several thousand. I’m not an expert on camera selection, but here is the thought process and learning I had when I selected my camera.

I’ve broken the digital camera market down into four “styles” of cameras:

1. Point and shoot compact cameras
2. Consumer model cameras with advanced settings
3. Consumer style D-SLR cameras
4. Pro level D-SLR’s

Each camera has a distinct purpose and situation that they are best suited for. The best advice I have is to choose the one that makes the most sense for your photographic needs, but that also fits in your budget. Buying the most expensive camera isn’t going to make you a better photographer. Knowing how to use the camera you have is what is most important. As the week goes on, I’ll create an entry for each segment of camera and walk you through the defining characteristics of each. I’ll also share what I bought, and why.

For now, a couple resources to check out are:

• DP Review (www.dpreview.com): Checkout the buying guide and camera database
• Consumer Reports (www.consumerreports.org): Good for reliability and feature comparison, but the site charges to see everything
• CNet Digital Cameras (www.cnet.com): This link takes you to the digital camera section. There are a lot of good reviews here.

Just a note here, I’m exclusively talking about digital cameras. If you are interested in traditional film I don’t really have any advice for you.