Buying the best SLR camera, for many photographers, continues to represent the official jump past purely amateur photography. With the explosion of DSLR (Digital Single Lens Reflex) cameras on the market, it's easy to forget what a powerhouse its film-based predecessor truly is. SLR cameras offer you manual control of all camera operations, which allows for maximum creativity.
Film?
While rapid changes in technology may render a DSLR camera obsolete in a year or two, film-based SLR cameras retain their value for decades. SLR cameras are also becoming increasingly more automatic to the point where they rival the functionality of their digital counterparts at a much lower cost.
SLR cameras have sturdier frames and the ability to withstand harsher weather conditions or accidents and mishaps without sustaining damage. SLR cameras are also incredibly versatile and can shoot in near blackness or bright sunlight without the noise and highlighting issues that plague DSLR cameras.
An SLR camera may be sold as body only, which means no lenses are included. An SLR camera kit will include at least one lens as part of the package. That lens is usually a basic zoom lens that provides both wide-angle and close-up options. Another great benefit of SLRs is the wide range of lenses available, from panoramic wide-angle lenses to telephoto lenses that bring you closer to the action.
The demise of film has been greatly exaggerated. 35mm film is still the type used by most photographers, and many professionals stick steadfastly to film for its quality and high resolution. Slide film tends to have better color accuracy than digital images, due partly to inconsistencies in color management profiles, color calibration on monitors and technological imperfections. If you need digital copies of your photos, it's a simple matter to scan them into a computer.
Manual SLR Camera Effects
One of the benefits of SLR cameras at all price points its ability to offer manual control. When you're looking at an SLR camera, you should be sure that any automatic settings can be disabled so that you have full manual control of all features.
In photography, the main variable you control is light. The trick of mastering an SLR camera is to understand the relationship between the aperture and the shutter speed and to learn how they both affect the light entering the camera.
Both the aperture and shutter allow light into the camera. The shutter determines how long the film is exposed, while the aperture works like the pupil in your eye, allowing more or less light to reach the film from the lens as it is opened and closed. A fast shutter speed and a larger aperture will give the film the same light as a longer shutter speed and a small aperture.
If you want to create a cityscape with blurred lights, you would leave the shutter open for a long period of time to capture all of the light of the various cars. To compensate for the amount of light the shutter is allowing into the camera, you would have the smallest aperture available to restrict the light coming from the lens. Long exposures create movement shots.
For an extreme close-up of a ladybug, you would want to use a large aperture to create a shallow depth of field. To compensate for the vast amount of light coming in from the aperture, you would want a fast shutter speed to restrict the amount of light reaching the film. With practice and experimentation, you will realize that your SLR camera is a powerful imaging tool.
Aperture
The aperture is one of the two ways your SLR camera determines the level of external light entering the camera. This diaphragm behind the lens can be operated manually or automatically.
F stop is the term used to denote the aperture setting of an SLR camera. The larger the number (f11), the smaller the hole and the less light entering the camera. The smaller the number (f4), the larger the hole and the more light entering your camera.
Aperture also controls the depth of field in the photo. Have you seen a photograph where the subject, say a flower petal, is distinctly clear but the rest of the plant and background is fuzzy? This is a shallow depth of field created by a large aperture. Conversely, a small aperture creates a large depth of field, such as that seen in a photograph of a city skyline where each building is crystal clear and sharp into the distance.
Shutter Speed
The shutter speed of an SLR camera will control the time in which the camera mechanics will expose the film negative to light, creating your image. The actual time the shutter remains open is the shutter speed.
Shutter speed can range anywhere from 1/4000 of a second to 30 seconds or more. A fast shutter speed (1/4000 seconds) may get a hummingbird's wings at a standstill. A long, or dragged, shutter speed (30 seconds) will create streaks of light and blurred motion.
Shutter speeds vary among different models, though a speed range of 1 to 1/2000 is common and a great place for beginners to start. You'll need to pay extra for extremely fast or slow shutter speeds. Keep in mind, too, that at slow shutter speeds any movement of your hands will make the entire photo blurry, so you'll want to set the camera on a tripod for these images.
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