So in your quest to conjure up information on digital cameras, relating to which one you should invest in, you keep coming upon the term SLR Digital Camera. This of course leaves you scratching your head a bit and wondering what the heck is that right? That's natural and you'll be glad to hear that it's a very common question.
You see... SLR digital cameras aren't as popular amid your everyday point and shoot photographer. You see tons and tons of compact and ultra compact digital cameras nearly every time you step outside. These days' people have a cell phone in one pocket and a digital camera in the other constantly just in case. Only since around 2005 have the SLR cameras become more popularly known, and less of what they used to be thought of, which is the type of digital camera that professionals use.
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Basically that sentence probably cleared up the question in your mind as to what they are and where you've seen SLR cameras, but you still don't really know the difference between that camera with the longer lens and the normal compact cameras you commonly see.
First of all, the term SLR is an acronym that actually stands for Single Lens Reflex. For the most part, it's a camera that utilizes a viewfinder instead of the fancy LCD screens (although a lot of newer models of SLR's feature the LCD screen as well). These cameras have interchangeable lenses to give the photographer a much larger variety of shot choices and lens strengths.
With an SLR digital camera you frame the shot within your viewfinder and what you see is basically the exact shot that you're going to get. Therefore if your shot is blurry it's up to you to adjust that or else you're going to be getting a blurry shot. For the most part, the SLR cameras are less automatic and more manual - hence the fact that until recently only very avid photographers and professionals used them.
In essence this manual control makes for a much more versatile digital camera, giving the knowledgeable photographer much more control to create the photos that he or she wants or needs, and relies less...or not at all... on any of the cameras automatic functions whatsoever.
The price of an SLR digital camera is typically much higher than the compact digitals, and usually cost in the 00 to ,000 price range, and that's not ordinarily including important accessories like extra lenses, tripods, etc. However, since the SLR digital cameras are growing so quickly in popularity, as with anything, the prices are beginning to adjust and decrease. The parallel to this is to simply think back to when a DVD player was 0 dollars compared to the fact that you can buy one now for a quick bucks.
Now most importantly to the avid digital camera enthusiast or professional photographer is obviously the quality of the shot itself. The SLR cameras are of significant superior quality in nearly all cases... and can pack a punch of up to between 12 and 18 megapixels. However there are some insane SLR digital cameras that have amazing megapixel counts in the hundreds. This is obviously overkill for any sort of ordinary photography and honestly the highest megapixel cameras in the 500 megapixel range are for space photography and other special functions like that.
But the quality of the SLR camera is usually superior to the regular old compact digital cameras, and that's largely due to the large image sensors that they come equipped with.
So now that you know the answer to the question "what is an SLR digital camera" you can go out and decide if it's the right type of digital camera for you. Frankly, if you're serious about learning photography as an enthusiast then the SLR might be the camera for you.
What is a SLR Digital Camera
