Digital Camera Comparison: compact, prosumer or SLR
When people purchase for a digital camera, first of all they should decide on what type of a camera they would like to buy. They can select between a point-and-shoot, prosumer, or digital SLR camera. The choice will depend on camera’s purpose and one’s photographic experience and will define the price of a tool.
Let’s see what is the difference between these types of digital cameras.
Compact digital cameras, also called point-and-shoots are characterized by great ease in operation and easy focusing. They tend to have significantly smaller zooms than prosumer and DSLR cameras. They have an extended depth of field. This allows objects at a larger range of depths to be in focus, which accounts for much of their ease of use. It is also part of the reason professional photographers find their images flat or artificial-looking. They excel in landscape photography and casual use. They typically save pictures in only the JPEG file format. But these cameras are are by far the best selling ones. They are popular with people who don’t consider themselves photographers, but want an easy to use camera for vacations, parties, reunions and other events.
Prosumer, or Bridge digital cameras are extended zoom cameras that physically resemble SLR “professional” cameras and share some features, but are still geared towards consumers. These cameras tend to have a large optical zoom lens, which compromises a “do it all” ability with barrel distortion and pincushioning. The distinguishing characteristics are that prosumer cameras do not have a removable lens (although accessory wide angle or telephoto lenses can be attached to the front of the main lens), can usually take movies, record audio and the scene composition is done with either the LCD display or the electronic viewfinder (EVF). The overall performance tends to be slower than a true digital SLR, but they are capable of very good image quality while being more compact and lighter than DSLRs. The high-end models of this type have comparable resolutions to low and mid-range DSLRs. Many of the these cameras can save in JPEG or .RAW format.
Digital single-lens reflex camera, or DSLRs are conceived for professional photographers and are well adapted for action photography or specialized uses (more: digital camera reviews). Their distinguishing feature is the use of exchangeable lenses, that allows tailoring a lens to an intended use instead of a compromise.
DSLR cameras have larger image sensors than compacts or prosumers, and thus higher sensitivity in dim lighting and less noise overall in the pictures they take. They usually are instantly on and the autofocus and operation is faster. Most of them can save in JPEG and RAW formats even simultaneously.
They are bulkier, heavier and much more expensive. Two characteristics many consumers are surprised to find due to the reflex viewfinder is they cannot record movies and the screen is only for reviewing pictures. All composing is done through the optical viewfinder which has more resolution than an electronic viewfinder and does not produce any delay.
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September 28th, 2006 at 10:32 am
[...] Original post by admin [...]
January 24th, 2007 at 6:38 am
[...] Less than a decade ago, there were no question about equipment – single-lens reflex (SLR) camera was the only device suitable for macro photography, rare attempts to use a rangefinder camera for this purpose were not successful. [...]