Photo Guide

Digital photography has surpassed film photography

in popularity in recent years, a fact

that has relegated some amateur and professional

film cameras to the unlikely task of becoming a

paperweight. In the art world, however, film cameras are

coveted. The lesson is simple: choose the tools that you

need to get the results you want.

Just a couple of years ago a professional would have

chosen from a vast array of film camera types--single lens

reflexes, twin lens reflexes, rangefinders, and view cameras

to name a few--when selecting the tools of his or her

trade. Now, with the advent of digital technology and digital

software, the serious photographer can, for the most

part, rely on a digital single-lens reflex camera, or D-SLR.

A D-SLR is an incredibly advanced and refined tool

that still offers the all-important ability, as in film version

cameras, to view your subject through the same lens that

records the image onto your sensor. This is achieved via

a mirror and a pentaprism so that what you see is what

you get (often referred to as WYSIWYG). It is hard to

imagine that every time you press the shutter to take a

picture, a mirror between the rear of the lens and the

image sensor flips out of the way, the camera shutter

opens, and the sensor is exposed for the required time.

Meanwhile, the camera's microprocessor is writing the

multitude of information the image sensor has recorded

to the camera's memory card. This is incredible in itself.

Now consider how incredible are the cameras used by

sport and press photographers, which manage this at

eight frames a second!

For all intents and purposes, there are two types of

D-SLR cameras. The first is a traditional-looking camera

roughly based on the 35mm film camera bodies that

preceded it. Photographers who would normally use

both medium- and large-format professional cameras are

discovering that in some instances the modern high-end

D-SLR provides superior image quality when