DSLR, Semi or Compact? Choosing the right digital Camera

Digital photography is just another aspect of the global digital revolution. If one wishes to purchase a digital camera, the options are almost limitless- where should a potential photographer even start?

Camera shops are loaded with a variety of manufacturers. Not only that, but each manufacturer produces a wide variety of camera types, for each camera type you can then find numerous different models. In this article I’ll review three main different camera types, or families- and help you decide which digital camera category is your best choice.

For the sake of discussion, I’ll leave out budget constraints for now, we’ll return to that later.
The three main categories of cameras I’d like to present are SLR, Semi-SLR and compact point-and shoot cameras.

Digital SLR

Digital SLR cameras today can produce top quality performance at an affordable price. You can tweak with every manual setting available in order to produce the best exposure setting for any scenario and lighting conditions, as well as use the convenient shutter priority or aperture priority modes. Changing lenses gives the photographer the ability to fit a perfect tool for a specific task, and extremely fast focus speed and shutter lag means you can usually capture the right moment. From great tele-zoom shots of wildlife to advanced techniques such as long exposure or panning- with an SLR camera the skies are the limit.
On the surface, why settle for anything less?
Well, first of all- too many people buy an SLR camera and then just use it on automatic mode, not really taking advantage of the various options- it’s a shame to spend all this money for nothing, a bit like living in a dense metro area and buying a Ferrari.
Bottom line, you should buy an SLR if:

• You have a genuine interest in learning how to operate a camera.
• You need a speedy machine to capture sports photography or other special conditions.
• You already own a point-and-shoot camera and feel like you can bring out more with a better camera
• You need to photograph at different styles and conditions, lets say Macro on one occasion and extreme sports on the other, and need interchangeable lenses.
• Or – You don’t really care about all of the above, think it’s cool to walk around with an SLR and don’t give a damn about wasting the money.

Semi-SLR

Just like my old and trustworthy Olympus C-8080. Semi SLR’s will give you the entire manual setting an SLR will have. On the other hand, they will be a bit cheaper, somewhat slower, and you can’t change lenses on them.
This category is actually a great purchase for anyone wanting to get a bit more out of his camera, but can’t really bother with buying lenses separately, and can be satisfied with what the “out of the box” package.
For underwater photography- you can buy a Semi-SLR and a matching underwater case at a reasonable price and still have the ability to produce high-quality images. With 1500$ and above for an SLR underwater case- I didn’t have any dilemmas.

Bottom line, you should buy a Semi-SLR if:

• All of the reasons specified in the SLR bit, only that you don’t want to deal with changing lenses, want to spend less money and willing to give up some speed.

Compact Point-and-shoot

Just the name of this category brings up deep feeling of disrespect. Point-and-shoot is pretty self explanatory. You point them, and shoot.
Compact cameras today are actually fantastic. The combination of simple operation, increasing performance with every new model, compact size and price- make this category into the most popular one.
You may feel limited without all the manual settings and other gadgets, but these cameras go into your pocket, and with a bit of effort you can generate images just like these, all taken with my Canon Ixus-850:

Bottom line- you should buy a compact point-and-shoot camera if:

• You really don’t care too much, and just want something to take photos with!
• You travel and still want to take your camera with ease.
• You’re on a low budget and just want to check out this whole photography issue.
• You already have an SLR with a fleet of Lenses but sometimes you’d rather just go back to basics and act like a kid with a cool toy.
• You see a challenge in producing top quality images with a compact.
• Try to get one that has a 28mm wide end to its lens, you won’t regret it.

Back to budget

I didn’t really mean to avoid this, but here’s the simple part. Pick out which category suits you best, and just buy either the best thing you can find or the specific model that you simple fancy the most.

At the end of it all- you can get great results with whatever you choose (see the above examples), and remember- only a bad workman blames his tool…

Hope this Helps!

Used this guide, got a camera and have some great new images? Show them off here at the Wide Lens.

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1. Digital photography tips – panning photographs