I promised some time ago that I would tell you about DSLRs. Time to follow through on that promise!
The top of the digital camera line is the digital single lens reflex camera (DSLR). These cameras are bigger and heavier than the compact cameras, and they have removable lenses and a hot shoe in addition to a built-in flash. A hot shoe allows you to attach a larger flash unit to the top of the camera or to attach a power cord to the camera that will allow you to place the flash unit away from the camera.
DSLRs are very high quality, and usually have a price tag to match. Expect to pay several hundred dollars for even a low-end DSLR, plus more money for an array of lenses and other accessories. The good news is, if you have a film SLR, your lenses and perhaps other accessories, such as flash, might also fit the same brand DSLR.
SLR cameras (both film and digital) were once used only by professional and advanced amateur photographers. This is no longer true. I know many professional photographers who use high quality compact digital cameras in addition to—and sometimes in place of—DSLRs. I also know a number of amateur photographers who purchased a DSLR as their first camera.
In my opinion, a DSLR camera has few advantages over a digital compact camera when it comes to most genealogy photography.
The first advantage is the ability to remove the flash from the camera body. And even that is no longer true in all cases. Some of the newer compact digital cameras have a hot shoe in addition to the built-in flash.
A second advantage is that digital SLRs also allow you to change lenses in ordet to allow more versatility to your photography. But with the wide range of zoom and macro capabilities available in many digital compacts, I don’t see the ability to change lenses as a major advantage for most genealogy photography.
A third advantage of the DSLRs is that they also eliminate any type of shutter lag—that fraction of a second between the time your finger presses the shutter release and when the camera actually snaps the photograph.
Shutter lag can be critical in photographing some subjects, such as sports or children, both of which tend to move very quickly and require split-second timing to capture with a camera. But for most genealogy photography, shutter lag shouldn’t be much of a problem.
What it really comes down to when choosing the right type of digital camera is features. The features any camera provides, regardless of its format (compact or DSLR) is most important in digital photography of any type. If your camera has the features needed for genealogy photography, it doesn’t matter whether it is a compact or a DSLR.
