Digital Photography Basics - Choosing a Camera that is Best for You

If you want to learn the basics of digital photography, it really doesn’t matter whether you’re using a digital compact or a DSLR with the exception of these few important differences.

Digital Compacts

One of the biggest benefits of digital compacts is the low cost. Also when you purchase a DSLR you will also need to purchase at least one lens, and if you want to take pictures from afar, you’ll also need a good telephoto lens. Digital compacts always come with a built in lens and sometimes even come with a zoom.

If you do have an optical zoom on your digital compact then you’ll also be able to take some good quality telephoto pictures. An optical zoom is always far better than a digital zoom because a digital zoom works like cropping – it takes away pixels. The more you zoom with a digital zoom the lower the image quality. Unlike regular zooms, an optical zoom maintains the quality of your picture.

Some compacts produce such high quality photographs that many a pro will grab the compact if they dont’ want to carry all their DSLR gear. The quality of the photo depends largely on the photographer’s skill.

While digital compacts don’t have as many mega pixels as DSLRs, with only 5 mega pixels, you can produce an 8×10 print of the type of quality you’d be proud to display in an 8×10 picture frame on your wall.

And lastly, learning how to use a digital compact is a lot easier than learning how to use a DSLR with all of its functions.

Digital Single Lens Reflexes (DSLRs)

A Digital SLR is the digital version of a single lens reflex camera or SLR. DSLR’s are also called SLRs but never the other way around. With the debut of the Canon Rebel and other more moderately priced DSLRs (relatively speaking) a few years ago, more photography enthusiasts are discovering the advantages of a DSLR.

The big advantage of the DSLR is its creativity and versatility. 

For example, by using a long telephoto lens you can take a close up of an eagle on the top of a tree and you’ll never be able to tell from the picture that he was so far away. With a DSLR, you can find all kinds of accessories to suit almost any photographer’s need.

Another benefit of DSLRs is their ability to take sharp pictures of sports or action photos in low light situations where a flash won’t work. The larger sensor on a DSLR allows you to do this; whereas with a compact, if you set the ISO high enough to take the shot in the dim light, it would have digital noise (sort of a multi colored grain).  If you are taking still photos, it’s not a problem. The problem with Sports Mode in a low light setting is that the shutter must close quickly so there is just not enough light to hit the image sensor even with a large aperture setting. The only way this can be compensated for is with a flash or a higher ISO setting.

However, there are software programs that once learned can often can work wonders in eliminating digital noise created with compacts in these settings.

Another advantage of using a DSLR is that you can use an external flash instead of always having to use natural light.

DSLRs have more megapixels than the best of the digital compacts, meaning you can take and print high quality pictures for framing in large picture frames like 11×14 frames or larger.. And lastly, digital cameras are slower to take pictures than film cameras but DSLRs are much faster than digital compacts.

Although the digital photography basics do start with selecting a camera, the quality of your images will largely depend upon how you use your camera. So no matter what type of camera you have or will be buying, it pays to practice.