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#WF15 How are digital technologies driving poverty reduction?
Introduction to An Example Of Digital Technology- Digital SLR or DSLR Cameras
What is a digital SLR or DSLR camera? It simply it is a digital camera that incorporates single lens reflex
mechanism. SLR technology gives the photographer through the lens viewing of the subject before the picture is taken. This is accomplished by a reflex mirror and a pentaprism mirror found in SLR cameras. The pentaprism is a five sided prism that deviates light by 90 degrees. The light reflects inside the prism twice and exits the prism 90 degrees from the first point of entry.
Digital single-lens reflex cameras are the most common type of camera used by professional photographers. Other types include point-and-shoot as well as the latest mirrorless cameras.
SLR cameras were first introduced in 1884. But the advancement in technology did not catch up with the concept until the 1960s when it became the preferred design for cameras. SLR film cameras were largely replaced by digital.
SLRs in the 2000s
Today’s advanced digital SLR cameras clearly have more advantages over the SLR film cameras of yesterday but some still fine film cameras desirable from an artistic point of view and the habit of a time-consuming process. Digital advantages include not having to purchase films, no wasting of time in film developing, instant viewing of photos, the ability to take thousands of pictures without changing the memory card, raw image technology in camera, processing of various features.Time is
Time is money and digital technology saves you a ton of time. Why would you not go digital as far as film resolution compared to digital resolution?
This has been a long debated topic and I cannot say what is better. All I can say is digital resolution is awesome.
So how does a digital SLR work?
First light travels through the detachable lens. The light hits the reflex mirror and reflects up into the pentaprism the pentaprism deviates the light 90 degrees out to the viewfinder. The photographer then has a through the lens view of the subject. The reflex mirror is, of course, in the down position when the shutter button is pressed to take a picture. The reflex mirror pivots upward and the shutter opens for the duration of the shutter speed setting allowing light or the image to fall on the sensor. The image is captured by the sensor and an image file is generated and written to the cameras memory card. This file is usually in a JPEG format or a raw file format. RAW files are sort of like a digital negative. You can take a raw files and make changes to them in post with software to get the final picture. This is where the creativity comes out. In digital photography, Adobe Lightroom is a popular software application to organize and process RAW images. Here is another
There are some common characteristics of digital SLR cameras.
- The following picture is featuring two examples of digital SLR cameras and they are fairly large. And digital SLR cameras are typically larger than mirrorless or point-and-shoot cameras. A point-and-shoot camera is about the standard size of a point-and-shoot or medium size as you can tell, fairly small.
- Digital SLRs have a hump on top of the camera behind the built-in pop-up flash. This is the pentaprism. For
example on the Canon 7D in the picture you can obviously notice that there is a hump right on the camera. This is very typical and very common of digital SLR cameras. That particular Canon 7D camera has a pop-up flash and you will be able to see behind the flash that raised area where the pentaprism is located and you’ll see this on all SLR cameras.
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More high-end cameras being full-frame cameras do not have built-in pop-up flashes. The 5d Mark 3 from Canon is a good example. As you can see here on the same picture, the camera onthe right is the Canon 5D Mark3 and it has the typical hump the but there is no pop-up flash and the pentaprism is in this area.
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Full-frame DSLR cameras have image sensors that are equivalent in size to the framing size of film cameras at least 35 millimeter full-frame cameras. They produce the best quality picture with low noise when compared to crop sensor digital cameras such as APS-C type.
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The Canon 7d is a crop sensor camera and uses an type APS-C type sensor. APS-C stands for Advanced Photo System type C sensor which is smaller than full-frame sensors and are widely used in DSLR cameras and mirrorless cameras.
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Cameras with sensor size less than full-frame is considered a crop sensor camera. So the Canon 7D is a crop sensor camera. The Canon 5d Mark 3 here is a full-frame camera and has a sensor at least 35 millimeter.
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When using a crop sensor DSLR, it has a smaller sensor when compared to full-frame; therefore, it adds a magnification factor to the actual lens focal length. This factor is either 1.5 times or 1.6 times; you can search online for the crop factor of your camera.
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If you are using a full-frame camera such as this 5D Mark 3, the one here in the picture, right with a 50 millimeter lens, the camera’s focal length will be 50 millimetres. If you are using a crop sensor camera such as the canon 7D here on the left, it has a crop sensor factor of 1.6 so when using a 50 millimeter lens on this 7D it will give you a focal length of 1.6 times 50 which gives you a focal length of 80 millimetres.
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So when using crop sensor DSLRs, it will add zoom to your lenses and take away wide-angle capability.
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Lenses are detachable on digital SLR bodies. This gives the photographer the ability to change lenses depending on the type of shot they want to make.
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A standard flash hot shoe mount is available on top of digital SLR cameras usually on top of the pentaprism area and this is where hot shoe is located. This is actually a speed light which is a flash unit and it can be attached to the camera.
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Digital SLRs usually have a mode select dial on top of the camera for example on the 7D here is the mode select dial. You will also locate it on the 5D Mark 3. And it has a little safety button here in which you have to depress in order to select the mode.
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Modern-day digital SLRs have built-in light meters for through the lens metering, TTL metering.
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Modern-day digital SLRs also have a quarter inch threaded hole on the bottom of the camera for mounting to a tripod
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