Originally posted by: Falcon39
What is SLR? I'm a bit of a digi cam noob. My old lady is getting me a digi cam for my 21st birthday in a week, I'm not sure which one she'll get but her budget was huge so it should be pretty fancy whatever it is.
An SLR is a camera that has a single lens (as opposed to a rangefinder, for example, that has one lens for viewing and one in front of the film for taking the picture) with a mirror that directs the light to the viewfinder by default, but flips out of the way to allow light to reach the film or sensor so a picture can be captured. 99% of the time, an SLR will also have interchangeable lenses, though this is not a requirement (it's a darn good idea, though).
"Prosumer" digital cameras often have electronic viewfinders, in which the camera continuously reads from the sensor, like a video camera would, and displays the output either on a small LCD in the viewfinder, or on the rear LCD of the camera. These have their own issues, and for many reasons, optical viewfinders will be preferred for many years to come in situations where only the best will do. However, if you are just doing casual photography, an electronic viewfinder can actually have some advantages that you would be able to take advantage of, since the disadvantages wouldn't affect you.
For what it's worth, SLRs vary in shape and size (and cost!). There are
cheap ones,
midrange semi-professional ones, and
really expensive ones. There are also the modular
medium format SLRs (scroll throughout the page to see what the cameras look like) that can be switched between digital and film by changing components; these are so expensive that the only reason you really need to know about them is to have trivial knowledge to impress your geek friends. :thumbsup:
