Find The Best Digital SLR For You - Part IWriten by Chris Roberts
What is the best digital SLR camera?
Is there one that clearly stands above the rest in terms of features, innovations or price?
If you compared every single camera side by side, would it be completely obvious which one was superior?
I'm afraid that the answer is a definite no.
While not all digital SLR cameras are created equal, they are all very similar.
The good news is that there is a way for you to pick the best digital SLR, even with a lot of cameras competing for your hard-earned dollars.
What Is an SLR?
First, it's important to understand what a digital SLR is, and how it differs from a compact digital camera.
SLR stands for Single Lens Reflex, and the defining feature of an SLR camera is that you can change the lenses. On a compact digital, the lens is permanently attached to the camera.
You take photos with an SLR by looking through the viewfinder since it shows you what the lens sees. With a compact digital, you usually take photos by looking at the LCD on the back of the camera.
SLRs are notable for their speed, and they respond instantly. Most compact digitals take several seconds to turn on and have a slight delay every time you take a photo.
SLRs are quite capable of taking photos even when there isn't a lot of available light. Compact cameras have a tough time focusing and slow down even further when the lighting is dim.
SLR Feature Overload
You're interested.
You've decided that your compact digital is just not living up to your expectations, or you're making the switch from film to digital.
Either way, you are now confronted with camera comparison confusion.
There has been explosive growth in the digital SLR market over the past two years, and it shows no signs of letting up.
This growth introduces no less than 10 new camera models per year, each one quite similar to the other.
While you can attempt a feature-by-feature comparison of every camera on the market, this is a time-consuming task that can lead to severe eye strain and a splitting headache.
AHA! you think. I know an easy way out of this. All I need to do is find the best bargain.
Don't Be Cheap
If you wanted a digital SLR several years ago, you had to be prepared to take out a second mortgage.
Today the price range for digital SLR cameras is compressed most of them cost between $500 and $700.
This is a huge improvement, but $500 is still a chunk of change.
So why not just find the cheapest camera and go with that? The cheapest digital SLR camera may be missing the one feature that you'd most like to have.
But how do you determine which features you'd most like to have?
I'll explain that in part 2 of this article.
Chris Roberts dispenses practical plain-English advice and information about digital SLR cameras at the Digital SLR Guide. His 5-week ecourse in digital SLR technique helps beginners get the most out of their digital SLR cameras.