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Wednesday, October 8, 2008

SLR Tricks of the Trade

By Dan Feildman

If you are looking for any of the following features in your next camera you should take a look at purchasing a real digital SLR:

reliability; bodies of the SLR almost never fail as opposed to point and shoot cameras which are built for light weight and low cost SLR cameras have large, bright, accurate optical viewfinder SLR cameras produce good quality images in low natural light, e.g., indoors without blasting everything with flash SLR's have the ability to attach specialty lenses, e.g., very wide angle lenses for interiors, scenery, and architecture, or long telephoto lenses for sports photography

Accessories You may want to purchase a lens cleaning kit.

A must have is at least one additional memory card. Most of the compact digital cameras take SD cards. If you are taking JPEG photos rather than RAW, you'll be able to fit between 250 and 500 images in a 1 GB card.

1 GB SD cards: SanDisk 2 GB SD cards: SanDisk 4 GB SD cards: SanDisk (good for a long trip into a remote area where you can't copy images to a computer) It is much more convenient to use a single memory card for an entire project or trip rather than using multiple cards.

If you want to wear the camera on your belt consider purchasing a small padded case. Lowe and Tamrac are generally the highest quality brands. The manufacturers' own brand cases are generally the lowest quality.

Tamrac publishes a useful fit chart. Lowepro's is a huge PDF.

Tamrac Ultra Compact Tamrac T17 Tamrac Digital 1 (slimmer digital cameras, plus extra pocket) Tamrac Digital 2 (compact cameras) Tamrac Digital 3 (SLR-like) If you have time and a good local shop, it is best to buy the case in person so that you can make sure you like the fit.

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