For those of you in the market for a new digital camera, you’ll quickly find that there are somewhere approach seven million articles on the topic of Digicam versus DSLR
Many of the articles that I’ve read have highlighted the pros of DSLRs to include things such as interchangeable lenses, RAW image mode and higher ISO settings. These are all great benefits, without a doubt, but are perhaps not the features that I find are of more value on a day-to-day basis.
I have had a number of digital cameras over the past few years, including mostly recently, the Canon Ixus 50 (digicam) and the most excellent Canon EOS 20D.
For those of you thinking about a DSLR as your next camera purchase, here’s a few observations on the features I find most useful.
- Shutter lag. Without a doubt the number 1 most annoying thing with digicams is the seemingly interminable shutter lag – that is, the time between pressing the button to take the picture, and the camera actually responding. While this mightn’t be such an issue if you’re into landscape photography, as anybody trying to photograph fast moving objects such a Formula 1 cars and children will know, this is a huge issue. Most, if not all, modern DSLRs (and indeed the non digital SLRs for that matter) all have little or no shutter lag. You press the button and the aperture fires.
- Start-up time. This is the time between turning the camera on, and actually being able to take a photo. With most digicams this process involves the lens being extended from its protective cocoon within the camera body, and feels like it takes about 15 minutes. My 20D has an advertised startup time of 0.2 seconds, but it seems even quicker. You press a button, and you’re good to go.
- Lots of buttons. Most digicams have minimised the number of external buttons and switches that they have. This makes them both aesthetically pleasing to look at, and superficially simple to use. However, very quickly you find that if you want to take a picture with anything but the default settings that you have to go hunting through menus to change anything. DSLRs, on the other hand, tend to have their most important features available on dedicated buttons on the camera body. While this, no doubt, looks somewhat intimidating early on, you quickly get used to it, and appreciate how much flexibility and speed (there’s that word again) it offers.
- Fast zoom and focus. I’ve put these under the same item, but in reality, they’re two separate issues. Speed, and indeed control of zoom is so much better because it’s a manual process on a DSLR. That is, the lens itself must be twisted or extended to zoom it. This is such an improvement in speed and control over the toggles or switches you get on a typical digicam. Focus time is generally less on a DSLR, and this fact, again, let’s you get to the “taking pictures” part of the exercise much quicker.
Tim Bray recently wrote his review of Adobe Photoshop Lightroom (all of which I would endorse), in which he states that speed is a feature. In my view, for most people, the speed of using a DSLR will be one of the greatest benefits, and will make taking photographs a much easier process (even if it doesn’t do much for the quality of the guy behind the lens).
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4 responses so far ↓
Still, all things "D" has very litle to do with the resulting photo. 1st of all, the bigger the lens, the more light you get. Simple optics. 2nd. it’s also about how the artefact (camera) allows YOU to compose an image. I abs hate e.g. tourists vewing a tiny LCD while waving cam around and eventually clicking. REAL photography, wether "d" or not, is about understanding light, colours, gestalts, and the human visual perception. If we can use our artefacts (cameras) to mediate a reality in which the final viewer isn’t in, but can relate to or empathise with, then - it’s a good shot!
BTW, I’m using a Canon 300D with a number of interesting lenses…
Valid point. I suppose that my key argument on the choice of camera types (artefacts) for capturing worthwhile images has much more to do with usability that it has to do with megapixels.
Like many current photography enthusiasts, I only really took up photography with the advent of digital, and have never really shot film. Like digital music, digital photography is a game-changer. It does not simply replace a piece of light sensitive material with a digital sensor - it fundamentally changes the behaviour of the photographer, IMHO.
Agreed. The good thing about "D" is that we can now take, for example, 30 shots with different light, angles, perspectives, etc., of one scene and then view and choose which one is the GREAT one. I think my ratio is about 1/100 at present. So, perhaps good old <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nyquist–Shannon_sampling_theorem">Shannon’s sampling theorem</a> applies….