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- Herausgeber: John Wiley & Sons
- Kategorie: Wissenschaft und neue Technologien
- Sprache: Englisch
The perennial DSLR bestseller--now expanded with more photography tips Digital SLR Cameras & Photography For Dummies has remained the top-selling book on DSLR photography since the first edition was published. Now in its Fifth Edition, itcovers the latest technologies in the world of DSLR cameras and photography to help you master the techniques that will take your digital photography skills to the next level. Written in plain English and complemented with full-color photos, this hands-on, friendly guide covers the mechanics of the camera; exposure, lenses, and composition; how to capture action, portrait, and low-light shots; editing and sharing images; tips for improving your digital photography skills; and much more. Digital SLR cameras offer the mechanisms and flexibility of traditional pro-level cameras with the instant results and output of digital cameras. If you're a proud owner of a DSLR camera and want to take stunning shots that were once only achievable by the pros, this is the guide you need. Written by one of the most recognized authors in digital photography, this accessible resource makes it fast and easy to start capturing professional-quality photos. * Full-color format helps bring the information to life * Includes coverage of the latest DSLR cameras to hit the market * Provides a foundation on exposure settings, file formats, and editing photos * Offers expanded content on capturing the portraits, action shots, nature shots, and night shots photographers love to take If you're interested in capturing more than just a "selfie" and truly want to hone the craft of digital SLR photography, Digital SLR Cameras and Photography For Dummies sets you up for success.
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Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2014
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Digital SLR Cameras & Photography For Dummies®, 5th Edition
Published by: John Wiley & Sons, Inc., 111 River Street, Hoboken, NJ 07030-5774, www.wiley.com
Copyright © 2014 by John Wiley & Sons, Inc., Hoboken, New Jersey
Published simultaneously in Canada
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Library of Congress Control Number: 2014940493
ISBN 978-1-118-95129-3 (pbk); ISBN 978-1-118-97184-0 (ebk); ISBN 978-1-118-97183-3 (ebk)
Manufactured in the United States of America
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Digital SLR Cameras and Photography For Dummies®, 5th Edition
Visit www.dummies.com/cheatsheet/digitalslrcamerasandphotography to view this book's cheat sheet.
Table of Contents
Introduction
About This Book
Foolish Assumptions
Icons Used in This Book
Beyond the Book
Where to Go from Here
Part I: Getting Started with Digital SLR Cameras and Photography
Chapter 1: The Digital SLR Difference
dSLR: dNext Great Digital Camera
Resolution: Peak or plateau?
Full frame: Is it for you?
Improving Your Photography with a dSLR
Composing shots with a more accurate viewfinder
Flexing the powerful sensor
Reducing noise in your photos
Reclaiming depth-of-field control
Taking photos faster
A dSLR works like a camera
Getting more lens flexibility
Freeing yourself from image editors
Where Did All Those Downsides Go?
Lack or expense of superwide lenses: Vanquished!
Fending off dirt and dust: Automatic!
LCD preview: Live, and in person!
Carrying that weight: Heft not mandatory!
In-camera editing!
Chapter 2: Safari Inside a dSLR
Megapixels and Why dSLRs Have More of Them
Pixelementary, my dear Watson
How many pixels does your camera need? 18 to 24MP and beyond!
Matching pixels to print sizes and printers
Nothing’s super about superfluous pixels
Touring a Digital SLR
Sensorship
Controlling exposure
Taking time out for viewing
Through the looking glass
Storage
Dual memory cards
Overcoming Quirks of the dSLR
Out, out damned spot: Trends in self-cleaning sensors
Multiplication fables: Working around the crop factor
Chapter 3: Tracking the Ideal dSLR
Identifying Features for Now and the Future
Spotting Breadcrumbs on the Upgrade Path
Discovering Your dSLR Type
Basic dSLR cameras
Enthusiast dSLRs
Advanced amateur/semipro dSLRs
Professional dSLR models
Rebirth of mirrorless and EVF alternatives
Checking Out Key Features
Lenses
Sensors and image processors
Exposure systems
Focusing systems
Special features
Part II: Accessorizing Your Digital SLR
Chapter 4: Saving and Archiving Your Photos
Choosing Memory Cards in a Flash
The right write speed
Finding the key to the (capa)city
Perfect pairs
Storing Your Images
Chapter 5: Gearing Up Your dSLR
Filtering Factors
The Tripod: Your Visible Means of Support
Putting a tripod to good use
Choosing a tripod
Connecting to Apps, Wi-Fi, and GPS
Smartphone/Tablet apps
Oh my, Wi-Fi
Gee, P.S.
Other Must-Have (Or Maybe-Have) Gear
A second camera
Sensor cleaning kit
Close-up equipment
Movie-shooting aids
Chapter 6: Mastering the Multi-Lens Reflex
Optical Delusions
Shooting in low light
Improving your shutter speed
Producing sharper images
Taking a step back
Getting closer
Focusing closer
Choosing Your Prime Lens — or Zoom
Prime time
Zoom, zoom, zoom
Special (lens) delivery
Understanding Lens Concepts
Different strokes
Going for bokeh
Using Lenses Creatively
Creative use of wide angles
Creative use of telephotos
Checking Lens Compatibility with Earlier Cameras
Chapter 7: External Flash Lighting
Illuminating Yourself about Electronic Flash Types
Perusing different types of flash units
Triggering an external flash
Making Good Use of an Electronic Flash
Choosing a Dedicated Electronic Flash Unit
Part III: Oh, Shoot!
Chapter 8: Taking Control of Your dSLR
Discovering the Secrets of Exposure
Understanding why exposure is tricky
Getting exposure right with the histogram
Fine-Tuning Exposure with the Metering System
Metering works how?
Choosing a metering scheme
Adding metering options to the mix
The Many Ways to Choose Exposure
Adjusting exposure the easy way
Giving up control (in Program and Scene modes)
Taking control
Exotic ISO settings: Is ISO 409600 for real?
Focus Pocus
Focusing manually
Oughta autofocus
Focusing in Live View
Choosing among Sequencing, Multiple Exposure, and Burst Modes
Chapter 9: Movies and Special Features of dSLRs
Making Movies
Choosing a resolution and frame rate
Using Video OUT in the age of HDTV
Feel the Noize at Night
A fast lens . . . or not?
Taking night shots at short shutter speeds
Noise Reduction Made Easy
Shake, Shake, Shake
Leaving camera-shake myths behind
Testing for tremors
Everyday solutions for shakiness
Image stabilization: The ready-steady-shoot technology
Time Waits for Someone: Creating Time-Lapse Sequences
Better Infrared than Dead
Chapter 10: Action, Flash, and Other Challenges
Kind of a Lag
Comparing point-and-shoot cameras to dSLRs
Understanding the sources of lag
Minimizing shutter lag
Minimizing first-shot delays
Minimizing shot-to-shot delays
Minimizing flash delays
Stopping Action in Its Tracks
Going with the flow (or panning)
Catching peak action
Zapping action with flash
Discovering the Keys to Good Flash Photography
Understanding flash at different distances
That sync-ing feeling: Coordinating flash and shutter
Getting the right exposure
Yo, Trigger! Setting Off an External Flash
Shooting in Sequences
Chapter 11: Composition and dSLRs
Composing a Photo: The Basics
Composing for message and intent
Applying the Rule of Thirds
Posers and Poseurs
Shooting individual portraits
Shooting group photos
Tips for Publicity and PR Photography
Capturing Architecture
Reeg, your perspective is out of control!
Charge of the lighting brigade
You’ve been framed!
Designing Your Landscape Photos
Compositional Ideas That Travel Well
Chapter 12: Applied Techniques
Essentials of Sports
Choosing lenses
. . . is everything! Timing.
People Who Need People
Getting a good look
When you’re having more than one . . .
Before you go
Nature and Landscapes
A broad landscape
Wildlife
Ready for Your Close-Up?
Part IV: Fine-Tuning Your Output
Chapter 13: Working with RAW and Other Formats
So Many Formats, So Little Time
Worth the Fuss: Understanding the Main Formats
Don’t get TIFFed
JPEG o’ my heart
The RAW deal
Choosing a File Format
TIFF enuff
JPEG junkies unite!
JPEG+RAW
Working RAW
Using RAW Files as Digital Negatives
Salvaging images from RAW files
Archiving RAW files
Finding RAW image-editing applications
Chapter 14: Fixing Up Your Images
Editor-ial Comments: Choosing an Image Editor
Adobe Photoshop CS6
Adobe Photoshop Elements
Alternative image editors
Workflow Work-arounds
Fixing Your Photos
Cropping
Fixing murky or contrasty photos
Correcting those colors
Removing spots
Look sharp, be sharp
Blurring for effect
Fixing with filters
Chapter 15: Hard Copies Aren’t Hard
Prints? What Prints?
You Pays Your Money, You Takes Your Choice
Doing it yourself
Live and in person!
Choosing a Printer
Part V: Part of Tens
Chapter 16: Ten Ways to Improve Your dSLR Photography
Does Lighting Ever Strike Twice?
Choosing a Righteous Resolution and Other Settings
Changing environments
Living with limited memory card space
Shooting for a low-resolution destination
Hurrying along
Stop! What’s That Sound?
Working the Right F/Stop
Focus Is a Selective Service
Playing the Angles
Through a Glass Brightly
Feel the Noize
Editing, Retouching, and Compositing Images
Reading the Funny Manual (RTFM)
Chapter 17: Ten Things You Never Thought of Doing with Your Digital SLR
Capturing Hidden Detail with High Dynamic Range Photography
Capturing the Invisible with Infrared Photography
Lighting for All in Tents and Purposes
Turning Your dSLR into a Pinhole Camera
Warping Time with Time-Lapse Photography
Expanding Your Creativity with Slow Shutter Speeds
Capturing an Instant in Time with Fast Shutter Speeds
Making Your Own Effects Filters
Shooting the Works!
Going for Baroque
Chapter 18: Ten Online Showcases for Digital SLR Photography
About Facebook
Google+Ultra
All Your PBase Are Belong to Us
Digital Photography Viewed and Reviewed
Flickr
Getting Your Mug Smug
Pop Goes the Photos!
Adobe Revel-ation
Your Zen Folio
Travel, HDR, and More
About the Author
Cheat Sheet
More Dummies Products
Guide
Table of Contents
Begin Reading
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Introduction
The digital single-lens reflex (dSLR) is the great step upward for photographers who want to expand their creative horizons — or simply just get better pictures. Whether you want to become a serious photo hobbyist, have a hankering to turn pro, or want to take advantage of the improved control that digital SLRs give you over your photography, discovering how to use this tool should be high on your priorities list.
The latest digital SLRs have features that no one even dreamed of back when I wrote the first edition of this book, including Wi-Fi and GPS capabilities built right into many cameras. These features give you the ability to embed global positioning service (GPS) data in your images or upload your shots directly from your camera to your computer or sites like Facebook.
All the major bugs of the earliest dSLRs have been magically transformed into killer features in the latest models. Today, you can preview your images by using Live View features before you snap the shutter. Dust that collects on the sensor causes much less of a problem thanks to built-in sensor-cleaning features. You get better image quality than in earlier models, thanks to higher resolutions (you can commonly get 16 to 20 megapixels and up, even in low-cost dSLRs), super-sensitive sensors that can capture images in near darkness, and inexpensive but effective anti-shake technology built into cameras or lenses.
Your digital SLR probably can capture extended tonal range images using a technique called High Dynamic Range (HDR) processing and grab HDTV-quality video with monaural or stereo sound.
Best of all, all these capabilities are eminently affordable. Digital SLRs in the $500 to $1,000 range today can outshoot the $5,000 professional models of five years ago and are light-years ahead of even the best point-and-shoot models. Compared to a point-and-shoot, the dSLR
Provides more control over what portions of your image you want in sharp focus.Boasts lower levels of the annoying grain effect called noise.Operates fast enough to capture the most fleeting action.If that isn’t enough, you can change lenses, too, adding superwide perspectives or the huge magnification possibilities of long, long telephoto lenses to your repertoire.
Almost all the other advantages of digital photography come with your digital SLR camera, too. You can review your image immediately, upload the photo to your computer, make adjustments, and print a sparkling full-color print within minutes. You never need to buy film. You decide which images to print and how large to make them. You can proudly display your digital photographic work framed on your wall or over your fireplace. You can even make wallet-size photos, send copies to friends in email, or create an online gallery that relatives and colleagues can view over the web.
About This Book
Technology and techniques — you find both in this book.
Understanding how a point-and-shoot digital camera works offers you little advantage because such entry-level cameras don’t give you the creative control that a dSLR does. However, understanding exactly how a digital SLR works can help you use its capabilities more fully.
By mastering the technology, you’re better equipped to understand how to use interchangeable lenses, set up speedy continuous-shooting burst modes, apply selective focus, and shoot under the lowest light levels.
A little knowledge about dSLR technology also provides the grounding you need to work with advanced photographic techniques, such as the ones I discuss in this book. I fill these pages with basic information and tips that you can use to hone your skills while you grow as a digital SLR photographer.
Foolish Assumptions
This book is written for both experienced and budding photographers who have a good grasp on how to use their computers and navigate the operating system, as well as at least a cursory knowledge about the operation of their digital SLR cameras. You needn’t be an expert photographer; all you need is a desire to improve your skills and knowledge.
Because dSLRs are a more-advanced type of digital camera, you might be making the upgrade from a conventional film SLR. At the very least, I assume that you aren’t new to photography and have some knowledge about conventional photography. If so, this book helps you fine-tune your abilities.
Although most of the emphasis in this book is on picture-taking, I offer a couple of chapters on image-editing, too. You can get the most from those chapters if you have some familiarity with an image editor, such as Corel PaintShop Pro, Adobe Photoshop, or Adobe Photoshop Elements.
Icons Used in This Book
I use the following icons throughout the book:
The Tip icon marks tips (what a surprise!) and shortcuts that you can use to work more easily with your digital SLR.
Remember icons mark information that’s especially important. To siphon off the most important information in each chapter, skim through these icons.
The Technical Stuff icon marks information of a more technical nature that you can normally skip over, unless you have a special interest in the background info I discuss.
The Warning icon tells you to watch out! It marks important information that might save you headaches, heartaches, and even cash-aches — especially when your dSLR starts acting in unexpected ways or won’t do exactly what you want it to do.
Beyond the Book
Beyond might suggest outer space, but in this case, look no further than the Internet for these fine resources:
Cheat Sheet (www.dummies.com/cheatsheet/digitalslrcamerasandphotography): This guide is a quick “feature finder” that shows you the typical location and layout of the most common controls found on digital SLR cameras, along with concise descriptions of what these buttons, dials, and readouts do.Dummies.com online articles (www.dummies.com/extras/digitalslrcamerasandphotography): The Web Extras for this book include additional recommendations and tips you can put to work to enhance your digital SLR’s performance and utility. I list my ten favorite gadgets priced under $100; explain how to print your images over the web using Snapfish, Shutterfly, and other sites; offer tips on finding the best location to shoot a variety of sports; and explain the mysteries of firmware upgrades.Where to Go from Here
Organization is your friend! All the chapters in this book are grouped together into parts that address a broad, general area of interest. If you’re especially keen to know more about a particular topic, such as how to select the perfect dSLR or its accessories, turn to the part of the book that includes that material. You don’t have to read this book in any particular order. You can absorb each part and chapter on its own. (If I explore a certain topic, such as shutter lag or infrared photography, in more detail elsewhere in the book, I give you a cross-reference pointing to the relevant section in case you want more information.) Skim through and study the photo examples or examine only the odd-numbered pages, if you prefer. It’s your choice. I hope that eventually you wade through the whole thing, but my top priority is delivering the information that you need right now to take better photographs.
Part I
Getting Started with Digital SLR Cameras and Photography
Learn more about digital photography and much much more at Dummies.com. Learn more and do more with Dummies!
In this part …
Discover why dSLRs produce better results faster than other cameras, and you can master the technology behind these advanced cameras.Select the best digital SLR for your needs.Learn which accessories can help you do a better job.Understand the sensors, shutters, and how exposure works.Find a list of the features you need, want, and wish you had.Chapter 1
The Digital SLR Difference
In This Chapter
Discovering why digital SLRs are a big deal
Exploring dSLR advantages
Looking at downsides? What downsides?
Now that you can buy a fully featured digital SLR (or dSLR) for five Benjamins or less, virtually everyone (including your grandmother) probably knows that SLR stands for single lens reflex. However, your Nana — or you, for that matter — might not know precisely what single lens reflex means. SLR is a camera (either film or digital) that uses a marvelous system of mirrors or prisms to provide bright, clear optical viewing of the image that you’re about to take — through the same lens that the camera uses to take the picture. The very latest dSLRs offer an even more interesting option: the capability to bypass the optical viewfinder and preview your image right on the LCD (liquid crystal display) on the back of the camera (which also uses the same lens that the camera uses to take the picture).
But the key thing to know about dSLRs is that they’re very cool tools that you can use to take photos electronically.
Welcome to the chapter that tells you exactly how smart you were when you decided to upgrade from whatever you were using previously to a digital single lens reflex camera. In this chapter, you find out how a digital SLR transforms the way you take and make pictures, why you may find the strengths of the dSLR important, and how even the very few downsides of previous digital SLRs have been vanquished in recent years. Now that digital SLRs have become a big deal, you can get in on the action.
In this chapter, I compare digital SLRs, for the most part, with point-and-shoot cameras, and explain the advantages of the dSLR versus P&S models. From time to time, I also mention a newer type of camera, the mirrorless interchangeable lens camera (ILC), which is very dSLR-like. But, for the most part, the comparisons are between digital SLRs and amateur cameras with fixed lenses, including point-and-shoot cameras and superzoom/electronic viewfinder models.
dSLR: dNext Great Digital Camera
Digital SLRs are now available to suit every budget. They range from surprisingly capable entry-level models that barely nudge above the $500 price point, to robust intermediate models built for avid amateurs with $1,000 to spend, on up to semipro and pro models for $2,000 and up. So, almost anyone who wants more picture-taking flexibility than a smartphone or point-and-click camera provides can afford to make the jump to a digital SLR. If you already have, you’ve discovered that the dSLR lets you take pictures the way they’re meant to be taken.
It’s easy to see why enthusiast photographers interested in taking professional-looking photos embrace these features of a digital SLR:
You can view a big, bright image that represents (almost) exactly what you see in the final picture. No peering through a tiny window at a miniature version of your subject with a tiny viewfinder window, or squinting at the LCD of your cell phone or point-and-shoot camera. Digital SLRs have big and bright viewfinders that show virtually the entire image, so you don’t have to wonder whether you chopped off the top of someone’s head. Using the optical viewfinder, which comes as standard equipment on every dSLR, means that you don’t have to squint to compose your image at arm’s length on an LCD (liquid crystal display) viewfinder that washes out in bright sunlight. However, if lighting conditions permit, all newer digital SLRs also enable you to preview your picture on the back-panel LCD using Live View (just like a point-and-shoot camera), giving you the best of both viewing worlds.A dSLR responds to an itchy trigger finger almost instantly. Forget about pressing the shutter release and then waiting an agonizing moment before the camera decides to snap the shot. Although newer point-and-shoot cameras are more responsive than older versions, few can match the capability of dSLRs to crank out shots as fast as you can press the button. Even fewer point-and-shoot cameras are capable of the 4-to-11 frames-per-second continuous shooting rates available with some of the digital SLRs aimed at more advanced photographers.You have the freedom to switch among lenses. Yes, there are some non-dSLR cameras (so-called mirrorless models) that are dSLR-like in many ways, and can use interchangeable lenses. But none of them can match the selection of optics available for the typical dSLR camera, even when you use an adapter that allows fitting lenses from other camera models. You can switch among an all-purpose zoom lens, a superwide-angle lens, an extra-long telephoto lens, a close-up lens, or other specialized optics quicker than you can say 170–500mm F/5–6.3 APO Aspherical AutoFocus Telephoto Zoomexpialidocious. (Best of all, you don’t even have to know what that tongue twister of a name means!)Just be prepared to succumb to lens lust, a strange malady that strikes all owners of dSLRs sooner or later. Before you know it, you find yourself convinced that you must have optical goodies, such as the lens shown in Figure 1-1 — a telephoto lens that’s absolutely essential (you think) for taking photos of wildlife from enough of a distance to avoid scaring away the timid creatures.
If you’re a movie nut, you can shoot the best movies of your life. The latest dSLRs are truly all-in-one cameras, capable of capturing razor-sharp stills and either 720p or 1080p high-definition movies with equal aplomb. They produce better-looking movies than most point-and-shoot cameras, and even exceed the capabilities and quality of the average dedicated camcorder, too. There’s an old saying that “The best camera is the one you have with you.” It’s equally true that the best movie camera is the one you’re already holding in your hands when a video opportunity pops up unexpectedly.Figure 1-1: Playing with lenses, lenses, and more lenses is one of the inevitable joys of working with a dSLR.
If you’re ready to say sayonara to film, adiós to poorly exposed and poorly composed pictures, and auf Wiedersehen to cameras that have sluggardly performance, it’s time to get started.
The sections that follow (as well as other chapters in this part) introduce you to the technical advantages of the digital SLR and how you can use the dSLR features to their fullest. When you’re ready to expand your photographic horizons even further, Parts II, III, and IV help you master the basics of digital photography, go beyond the basics to conquer the mysteries of photo arenas (such as action, flash, and portrait photography), and then discover how you can fine-tune your images, organizing them for sharing and printing.
Resolution: Peak or plateau?
Only a few years ago, it was common to buy a digital camera based only on the number of pixels — measured in millions of pixels or megapixels — because a camera with 24 gazillion pixels obviously must be superior to one with only 18.14159625 gazillion pixels, right? Then photographers discovered that one vendor’s 18MP camera produced much better images than another vendor’s 24MP camera, especially in terms of image-quality characteristics unrelated to resolution (say, visual noise or color accuracy).
In recent years, digital SLRs have continued to boast more and more pixels, but those other image qualities have gained equal stature in terms of importance. Photographers are looking at the overall picture, in other words. As I write this, resolution seems to be averaging around 21–24 megapixels, with 16–18MP at the low end for entry-level and intermediate models, and 21–24MP for more advanced cameras. Because additional resolution isn’t as important as reduced visual noise and other image quality factors, I expect resolution to plateau or peak at the current high of about 36MP during the life of this book.
Full frame: Is it for you?
So-called full-frame cameras have become more affordable, with some models available for less than $2,000. Equipped with sensors the same size as a 35mm film frame — 24 x 36mm — these cameras enjoy the double benefit of offering “true” (non-cropped) fields of view and improved low-light/visual noise characteristics thanks to their larger, light-hungry pixels. (You find out more about lens cropping in Chapter 2.) Wide-angle lenses of a given focal length have a wider field of view when mounted on a full-frame camera, and conversely, longer lenses don’t have the same “cropped” telephoto “reach” as they do on a camera with a smaller sensor. Full-frame cameras are generally more expensive, larger, and may force you to buy a whole new complement of lenses that can bathe their larger sensors with light. So, whether one of these models is for you depends on what features you need and how much you want to pay for them. I explain the advantages and disadvantages of full-frame cameras in more detail in Chapter 2.
Improving Your Photography with a dSLR
The differences between digital SLRs and the camera that you used before you saw the (digital SLR) light depends on where you’re coming from. If your most recent camera was a point-and-shoot digital model, you know the advantages of being able to review your photos on an LCD screen an instant after you take them. And, if you’re serious about photography, you also understand the benefits of fine-tuning your photos in an image editor. If you’re one of the few remaining holdouts only now making the long-delayed switch to a digital SLR from a film SLR, you’re likely a photo enthusiast already and well aware that a single lens reflex offers you extra control over framing, using focus creatively, and choosing lenses to produce the best perspective. And, if you’re making the huge leap from a point-and-shoot non-SLR film camera to a digital SLR, you’re in for some real revelations.
A digital SLR has all the good stuff available in a lesser digital camera, with some significant advantages that enable you to take your photo endeavors to a new, more glorious level of excellence. Certainly, you can take close-ups or sports photos by using any good-quality digital camera. Low-light photography, travel pictures, or portraits are all within the capabilities of any camera. But digital SLRs let you capture these kinds of images more quickly, more flexibly, and with more creativity at your fingertips. Best of all (at least, for Photoshop slaves), a digital SLR can solve problems that previously required you to work long hours over a hot keyboard.
Despite the comparisons you can make to other cameras, a digital SLR isn’t just a simple upgrade from another type of camera. In the sections that follow, I introduce you to the advanced features and inner workings of a dSLR so that you can begin getting the most out of your camera.
Composing shots with a more accurate viewfinder
When you use non-SLR cameras, what you see isn’t always what you get.
Theoretically, an electronic viewfinder (EVF) or the LCD on the back of a digital camera should show exactly what you get in the finished picture — and an increasing number of these do just that, offering a 100-percent view of the image you end up with. After all, the same sensor that actually captures the photo produces the EVF or LCD image. In practice, although an electronic viewfinder can be used under a variety of conditions, you might find the typical back panel LCD difficult to view under bright light. It also appears so small when you hold the camera at the requisite arm’s length that you may feel like you’re trying to judge your image by looking at a postage stamp that’s gone through the wash a few times.
You probably find the view through an optical viewfinder window — if it even has one — even worse than the camera’s LCD screen: diminutive, inaccurate enough to make chopping off heads alarmingly easy, and offering no information about what is (or isn’t) in focus.
More advanced cameras might use an electronic viewfinder, which is a second, internal LCD or OLED (organic LED) that the user views through a window. You can find this kind of viewfinder in many so-called superzoomcameras that have a fixed lens with a versatile, relatively long zoom range. The mirrorless cameras I mention earlier (including the various interchangeable lens models from Panasonic, Olympus, Fuji, or Sony) also may have a built-in or optional supplementary EVF-style viewfinder that you clip onto the top of the camera. EVFs provide a larger image that’s formed by the actual light falling on the sensor, and you can use an EVF in full sunlight without the viewfinder washing out. However, EVFs might not have enough pixels to accurately portray your subject, and they may degenerate into blurred, ghosted images if the camera or subject moves during framing. They also don’t always work as well in low light levels, when the available light reaching the sensor must be amplified to be easily viewed on the EVF. Although an EVF can be a good compromise between an optical viewfinder and a back panel LCD, an EVF doesn’t enable you to preview an image as easily as a dSLR’s optical viewfinder does. However, some of the newest mirrorless models include EVFs with up to 2.4 million pixels, and viewing quality so good you think you’re peering through an optical viewfinder.
A digital SLR’s optical viewfinder, in contrast, closely duplicates what the sensor sees, even though the image is formed optically and not generated by the sensor itself. What you see in the viewfinder is all done with mirrors (and other reflective surfaces) that bounce the light from the lens to your viewfinder, sampling only a little of the light to measure exposure, color, and focus. As a result, the viewfinder image is usually big and bright.
Check out Figure 1-2 and decide which view of your subject you’d rather work with. You may find the 3-inch LCD on the mirrorless interchangeable lens model (in the upper-left corner of Figure 1-2) difficult to view in bright light; the electronic viewfinder (in the upper-right corner of the figure) can give you fuzzy images, making it hard for you to judge focus. The digital SLR’s big, bright viewfinder (at the bottom of Figure 1-2) is, as Goldilocks would say, just right.
A dSLR’s optical viewfinder shows you approximately what is and isn’t in sharp focus (the depth-of-field), either in general terms (all the time) or more precisely when you press a handy button called the depth-of-field preview, which many dSLRs have. You probably find your dSLR viewing experience more pleasant, more accurate, and better suited for your creative endeavors. If you switch to a camera’s Live View mode (if your camera includes that mode) to preview the image on the back-panel LCD, you can often perceive depth-of-field. However, under high light levels, the LCD can be just as difficult to see as on a point-and-shoot camera.
Figure 1-2:A back panel LCD viewfinder (upper-left) or an EVF LCD (upper-right) is no match for a dSLR’s optical system (bottom).
Flexing the powerful sensor
With very few exceptions, digital SLR sensors are physically much bigger than their point-and-shoot camera counterparts. This size gives them a larger area that can capture light and, potentially, great sensitivity to lower light levels, along with improvements in the ability to make larger prints or crop tightly. (Some non-SLR cameras give up compactness to provide somewhat larger sensors, and mirrorless models can use the same size sensors as dSLR cameras.)
A dSLR’s extra sensitivity pays off when you want to
Take pictures in dim light.Freeze action by using shorter exposure times.Use smaller lens openings to increase the amount of subject matter that’s in sharp focus.Within the Canon digital camera line alone, you find digital SLRs that have 22.2mm-x-14.8mm to 24mm-x-36mm sensors (the size of a 35mm film frame). By comparison, some of Canon’s digital point-and-shoot cameras use a sensor that measures only 7.8mm x 5.32mm. Put in terms that make sense to humans, the dSLR sensors have 8 to 20 times more area than their Lilliputian point-and-shoot sensor-mates. Figure 1-3 gives you a better idea of the relative sizes.
Figure 1-3: These images represent the comparative sizes of a dSLR’s 24mm-x-36mm sensor (upper-left) and 22.2mm-x-14.8mm sensor (center), and a point-and-shoot digital camera’s 7.8mm-x-5.32mm sensor (bottom).
If you think of a sensor as a rectangular bucket and the light falling on it as a soft drizzle of rain, the large buckets (or sensors) can collect more drops (or the particles of light called photons) more quickly than the small ones. Because a certain minimum number of photons is required to register a picture, a large sensor can collect the required amount more quickly, making it more sensitive than a smaller sensor under the same conditions.
In photography, the sensitivity to light is measured by using a yardstick called ISO (International Organization for Standardization). Most point-and-shoot digital cameras have a sensitivity range of about ISO 50 to ISO 100 (at the low end) up to a maximum of ISO 800 to ISO 3200 or 6400 (at the high end). Some point-and-shoot models have even higher sensitivity settings, but it remains to be seen how useful these ultra-high ISO non-SLR models are. Indeed, many models that have high ISO settings generally don’t do a very good job in terms of image quality, because their pixels are smaller and can’t capture light as efficiently.
In contrast, digital SLRs — which have more sensitive sensors and larger light-gathering pixels — commonly have very usable ISO settings of up to at least ISO 1600 or ISO 3200. Many are capable of ISO 6400 or may range up to a lofty ISO 25600 (and up)! This extra speed does have a downside, as you can see in the following section. But, in general, the added sensitivity allows people to shoot photos in dim light, take action pictures, or stretch the amount of depth-of-field available and increase flash range.
Reducing noise in your photos
Visual noise (or just noise) is that grainy look that digital photos sometimes get, usually noticeable as multi-colored speckles most visible in the dark or shadow areas of an image. Although you can sometimes use noise as a creative effect, it generally destroys detail in your image and might limit how much you can enlarge a photo before the graininess becomes obtrusive.
The most common types of noise are produced at higher sensitivity settings. Cameras achieve the higher ISO numbers by amplifying the original electronic signal, and any background noise present in the signal is multiplied along with the image information. Figure 1-4 shows an image with a relatively low ISO value of 200 that’s virtually free of noise and an image with a sensitivity of ISO 6400. The ISO 6400 sensitivity produces a lot more noise than the ISO 200 — even though someone took both pictures by using a digital SLR.
Figure 1-4: A noise-free photo shot at ISO 200 (top); a noisy photo shot at ISO 6400 (bottom).
Point-and-shoot digicams often don’t have ISO settings beyond ISO 6400 because the noise becomes excessive at higher ratings, sometimes even worse than you see in the bottom example in Figure 1-4. However, you can boost the information that the big dSLR sensors capture to high ISO settings with relatively low overall noise. I’ve used digital SLRs that had less noise at ISO 1600 than some poor-performing point-and-shoots displayed at ISO 400. Obviously, the large sensors in dSLRs score a slam-dunk in the noise department and make high ISO ratings feasible when you really, really need them.
Noise doesn’t always result simply from using high ISO settings: Long exposures can cause another kind of noise. Although some techniques can reduce the amount of noise present in a photo (as you discover in Chapter 2), by and large, digital SLR cameras are far superior to their non-SLR counterparts when it comes to smooth, noise-free images.
Thanks to the disparity in size alone, all sensors of a particular resolution are not created equal, and sensors that have fewer megapixels might actually be superior to high-resolution pixel-grabbers. For example, many older 12-megapixel dSLRs produce superior results compared to some of the newer 14-megapixel non-SLR digicams. So, no matter how many megapixels a point-and-shoot camera’s sensor can hoard, that sensor generally isn’t as big as a dSLR’s. And when it comes to reducing noise, the size of the sensor is one of the most important factors.
Reclaiming depth-of-field control
Depth-of-field is the range over which components of your image are acceptably sharp. In general, you want to be able to control the amount of depth-of-field because having more or less depth-of-field gives you creative control over what’s sharp and what isn’t in your photos. You might prefer to zero in on a specific subject and let everything else remain blurry. Or you might want to have everything in your frame as sharp as possible.
To understand how dSLR cameras give you more control over depth-of-field, you need to understand the three factors that control this range, which I outline in Table 1-1.
Table 1-1 How Depth-of-Field Affects Photos
Factor
How It Affects a Photo
The distance between the camera and the subject
The closer your subject is to the camera, the greater the tendency for the objects in front or behind the subject to blur in the photo.
The size of the lens opening (the f/stop or aperture) used to take the picture
Larger f/stops (smaller numbers), such as f/2 or f/4, produce less depth-of-field than smaller f/stops (larger numbers), such as f/11 or f/16. Remember: The size of the numbers is reversed because apertures are actually the denominators of fractions, so ½ and ¼ are larger than 1∕11 or 1∕16.
The magnification (or focal length) of the lens
The shorter the focal length of the lens (say, 18mm or 20mm), the more depth-of-field is present. When the focal length grows longer (say, to 70mm or 100mm), the depth-of-field shrinks.
Point-and-shoot digital cameras offer very little control over depth-of-field because, unless you’re shooting an extreme close-up, virtually everything is in sharp focus. The prodigious depth-of-field also makes it difficult to plan and visualize the range of focus as you view the image prior to exposure. This condition (which you may not like if you’re trying to use focus selectively) occurs because non-SLR digital cameras that use tiny sensors also must have lenses of a much shorter true focal length. Smaller sensors require a shorter focal length to produce the same field of view.
So, a point-and-shoot digital camera might have a 7.5mm-to-22.5mm 3X zoom lens that provides a slightly-wide-angle-to-slightly-telephoto field of view. A digital SLR with the largest (24mm x 36mm) sensor might need a 35mm-to-105mm zoom to provide the same perspective.
Yet, depth-of-field is dependent on the actual focal length, not the equivalent. So, that point-and-shoot camera’s lens, even at its longest telephoto position (22.5mm), provides more depth-of-field than the dSLR’s same-perspective zoom at its widest angle. So much is in focus with a non-SLR digital camera that, in practice, you have very little control over depth-of-field, except when shooting close-up pictures from very short distances.
You can see the effect of using a large maximum aperture in Figure 1-5, which was shot at f/5.6 with a 200mm lens. Creative use of depth-of-field can isolate a subject effectively. In Chapter 6, I explain depth-of-field in more detail.
Figure 1-5: Using a large f/stop, you can easily isolate a subject with a creative application of blur.
Taking photos faster
Everything about a digital SLR seems to work more quickly and responsively. You may find that speed important when you want to make a grab shot on the spur of the moment or expect the camera to take an action photo right now when you press the shutter release at the peak moment. Many point-and-shoot digital cameras are downright slugs compared to dSLRs. (To be fair, though, vendors have worked very hard to close the gap, and the performance gap is much less than it was in years past.) With a dSLR, you find improved speed in three key areas, which I explain in the following sections.
Wake-up time
You can have a relatively fast non-SLR digicam powered up and ready to snap its first photo in as little as a second or two. Worse, because they consume so much power (thanks to the rear-panel LCD), these cameras may go into standby mode or shut off completely if you don’t take a picture for 30 to 60 seconds.
When you flip the power switch of a dSLR, the camera is usually ready to take the picture before you can move the viewfinder up to your eye. Some dSLRs are ready to go in 0.2 of a second! Digital SLRs don’t need to go to sleep, either, because they consume so little power when not in active use. I’ve left dSLRs switched on for days at a time with little perceptible draining of the battery (but not in Live View mode, which uses more juice). Certainly, the autofocus and auto-exposure mechanisms go on standby a few seconds after you move your finger from the shutter release, but you can have them available again instantly by giving the button a quick tap.
Shot-to-shot time
Conventional digital cameras have limits on how quickly you can take pictures in succession. Unless you’re using the motor-drive-like burst mode, one shot every 1 to 2 seconds is about all you can expect. Even in burst mode, you’re lucky to get much more than 1 to 3 frames per second for 5 to 11 shots, max. Some point-and-shoot cameras do allow you to fire off shots continuously for longer periods (in some cases, until the memory card is full!), but you don’t find such speediness in the average entry-level digital snapshot camera.
But all digital SLRs have relatively large amounts of built-in memory that temporarily store each photo that you snap before the camera transfers it to your memory card at high speed. You can probably take pictures in single-shot mode as quickly as you can press the shutter release, and for at least 8 to 10 shots before a slight pause kicks in. If you use a fast dSLR that has some quality level settings, you can often keep taking pictures for as long as your finger (or memory card) holds out.
A dSLR’s burst mode can typically capture 3 to 11 frames per second for 12 to 30 shots or more, depending on the speed of the camera, speed of the memory card, and the quality level you choose. Low quality (high compression) settings produce smaller images that the camera can write to the memory card quickly (see Figure 1-6). No common point-and-shoot camera comes anywhere close to that level of performance at full resolution, even though a few can shoot at sustained frame rates that allow you to produce movielike effects with your still images. Sony produces near-dSLR models that use a semi-transparent mirror instead of a flip-up mirror, which allows them to fire off shots at a 10 or more frames per second (fps) clip. However, these “SLT” (single lens translucent) cameras have an EVF (electronic viewfinder) rather than optical SLR viewfinder, so they are not true dSLRs. (See Chapter 2 talks in more detail about the types of viewing systems.)
Figure 1-6:Digital SLRs make shooting high-speed action sequences easy.
Shutter lag
In years past, the number one question I got from new digital photographers was “What can I do about shutter lag!?!” Digicam owners seem to really dislike their camera’s shutter lag — the pause between the moment you click the shutter button and the moment the sensor captures a slightly different image. Some snapshot cameras are worse than others, of course, but you can still find many models available that produce a slight, but annoying, lag between pressing the button and taking the picture.
Technically, digital SLRs also experience shutter lag, but it’s likely so brief — on the order of 0.1 to 0.2 of a second — that you never notice it. Of course, dSLRs have little shutter lag only most of the time. Point your lens at a difficult-to-focus subject, such as the sky, or try to take a photo under low light, and your speedy autofocus lens might hunt back and forth while you gnash your teeth in frustration. (You discover some ways around this problem in Chapter 10.)
A dSLR works like a camera
Another reason why digital SLRs have improved performance is that they’re easier to use, so you, as the photographer, can work quickly while you shoot. The manufacturers configure most non-dSLR cameras for consumers who simply want to grab a quick snapshot, instead of investing some artistry in creating a photograph.
Moreover, point-and-shoot cameras tend to be designed by an engineer who did a really, really good job adding photo capabilities to the vendor’s cell phone line last year, and who obviously must be the best choice to cobble together a full-fledged digital camera. Indeed, the line between cell phone cameras and digital snapshot cameras is blurring all the time. (Now that iPhone, Android, and other smartphones are commonly furnished with two cameras — one front-facing and one rear-facing — it’s likely that one day you’ll be able to get only a few categories of cameras: cell phone-integrated point-and-shoot models and interchangeable lens cameras such as digital SLRs and mirrorless LCD/EVF models.)
Like cell phones, non-SLR digital cameras tend to have most of the controls tucked away out of sight in the menu system, where the average consumer never has to see them and where the photo enthusiast has to hunt for them.
Digital SLRs, on the other hand, are always designed by a team of engineers who have extensive photographic experience. They know which controls a photographer absolutely needs and which controls they can bury away in the menus because you access those controls only when setting up the camera and maybe once a month (if that) thereafter.
Digital SLR designers know that you don’t want to go three levels deep into a menu to set the ISO sensitivity or adjust white (color) balance for the type of illumination that you’re using. You want to press an ISO or a WB (white balance) key and dial in the setting without giving it much thought. Or, perhaps, you can press a “quick control” button to produce a screen of all the available settings. You don’t want to wade through a tedious onscreen display to set frequently used controls like shutter speed or aperture. You want to adjust each with a dial or two. Nature intended that you zoom and manually focus your camera by twisting a ring on the lens, not by pressing a little lever and letting a motor adjust the lens at its own pace.
Simply having a camera that operates like a camera, rather than like a DVD player, makes your picture-taking much easier and faster.
Getting more lens flexibility
When you work with a non-SLR, you use the lens mounted on the camera. In the past, some models had add-on telephoto and wide-angle attachments. You can still find such accessories, but they tend to subtract a bit of sharpness, even while they change the camera’s viewpoint.
So, point-and-shoot camera owners must decide at the time they buy the camera what kind of pictures they intend to shoot. If they want to take a lot of photos indoors or of architecture outdoors, they might need cameras that have the equivalent of an ultrawide-angle lens, which is still fairly rare among non-dSLR models. Perhaps a photographer wants to shoot sports, so he or she needs a very long lens. You can find those lenses available, especially with superzoom models, but not generally with cameras that also have wide-angle capabilities.
Digital SLR camera owners have fewer limitations. I own a 10mm-to-24mm zoom that’s the equivalent of a 15mm-to-36mm wide-angle lens on a dSLR that has a sensor of less than full-frame size. (You can find out more about full-frame sensors and why lenses are measured in equivalents in Chapter 2.) Other lenses that I own cover every single focal length, up to 500mm (750mm equivalent). I have two lenses designed especially for close-up photography and others that have fast f/1.4 apertures, which are perfect for low-light sports shooting, concerts, parties indoors, and other subjects. I haven’t come close to exhausting the possibilities, either: You can find longer and wider lenses than what I own, along with specialized optics that do tasks such as canceling sharpness-robbing vibration caused by a photographer’s unsteady hand.
Owners of dSLR cameras don’t have to mortgage their homes to buy these lenses, either. Camera vendors offer some very sharp-fixed focal length lenses (prime lenses) for around $100. You can find inexpensive 70mm-to-210mm zoom lenses for as little as $150 to $200. A versatile 28mm-to-200mm zoom that I bought a few years ago cost only $300. Because dSLRs can often use lenses designed for their film camera counterparts, you can find hundreds of inexpensive used lenses, too. If you have a non-dSLR, you frequently have to buy a new camera to expand your lens horizons. You can find out more about selecting lenses in Chapter 6.
Freeing yourself from image editors
Digital SLRs do more than change how you take pictures. They change how you make pictures, as well. Perhaps you’re a seasoned image editor, accustomed to cropping images in Photoshop or Photoshop Elements to mimic the extreme telephoto perspective that your previous camera couldn’t duplicate. You might have used an image editor’s Zoom Blur feature because your digicam’s zoom lens didn’t zoom fast enough to allow you to create that effect in the camera, as shown in Figure 1-7. You’ve faked fish-eye lens effects because your camera didn’t have a fish-eye lens, or you’ve manually added lens flare instead of trying to create the real thing.
Maybe you had to blur the background of your images in an image editor because your digital point-and-shoot camera always brought everything into sharp focus (an excellent trait when you want everything in focus, but not so great when you want to focus selectively for creative effects).
By using a dSLR, those limitations might be behind you now. A digital SLR can do a lot of tricks that you had to fake in Photoshop in the past. Image editors are still helpful for some tweaks, as you discover in Chapter 14.
Figure 1-7:Don’t settle for fake zoom blur when you can have the real thing.
Where Did All Those Downsides Go?
Of course, the digital SLR isn’t perfect — but it’s getting close. In previous editions of this book, I had to include a section that explained in detail, several downsides to using these Wundermaschinen, which ranged from the annoying to the almost irrelevant. Today, each of those downsides has been virtually vanquished. I address them in decreasing order of concern (at least, for most photographers) in the following sections.
Lack or expense of superwide lenses: Vanquished!
Many high-end digital SLRs have sensors that are the same size as the 35mm film frame, so you don’t have to calculate equivalency factors. A 200mm lens provides the same magnification on a full-frame dSLR as it did on a film camera. More importantly, a 16mm or 14mm superwide-angle lens retains the same wide field of view.
But more affordable digital SLRs have smaller-than-full-frame sensors (I talk more about the sensor-size issue in Chapter 2), so the sensor crops the field of view of any lens that you mount on the camera to match the smaller sensor size. The crop factor ranges from 1.3 to about 2.0 for the current, er, crop of digital SLRs. Therefore, in practice, a 100mm telephoto lens mounted on one of these cameras has the same field of view as a longer 130mm-to-160mm telephoto lens on a 35mm film camera. Because you figure the effective field of view by multiplying the actual focal length by the crop factor, the figure is also sometimes called a magnification factor. But magnification factor isn’t an accurate term because no magnification takes place. The camera simply crops out part of what the lens sees. Your 100mm lens might look like it’s been magically transformed into a longer 160mm optic, but the depth-of-field and other characteristics remain the same as the 100mm lens it really is.
Photographers who shoot sports and distant subjects often love the crop factor, even though it gives them nothing they can’t achieve just by cropping a full-size frame. The crop factor seems to provide a longer telephoto lens for the same money. The good news turns bad, however, when they mount 28mm wide-angle lenses on their beloved dSLRs and find that they have the same field of view as a 45mm standard (normal) lens, or that their favorite 18mm superwide lenses are now 29mm ordinary wide-angle optics. (I use a 1.6 crop factor, typical of Canon cameras, in all these examples.) In this case, you get a less wide view from a particular lens.
Fortunately, you can find plenty of true wide-angle lenses available for digital SLRs. Since the last edition of this book, the cost of those lenses has gone down, so any serious photographer can afford them. Three different vendors offer 12mm-to-24mm or 10mm-to-24mm superwide zooms for my favorite dSLR, making it possible to shoot expansive shots, such as the one shown in Figure 1-8. You can get focal lengths down to 8mm. If you want to shoot wide and have a dSLR that has a crop factor, you can find lenses that provide you with the wide-angle view you crave.
Figure 1-8: You can take panorama-like shots by using an ultra-wide-angle lens.
And remember, most of these lenses are considerably wider than the (current) widest-angle optics available for point-and-shoot cameras, which seem to get no wider than the equivalent of 24–28mm with a traditional film camera.
