I'm shopping for a new digital camera and most of the ones I like say digital SLR, can anyone explain to me what this means? SLR stands for Single Lens Reflex. These cameras are different from point & shoot cameras in several important ways:
* they're much more responsive (better for sports, candids, etc.)
* they're better in low light situations.
* the lens is interchangable - you can use a general purpose zoom, or you can use any number of quality lenses for specific purposes (for macro photgraphy, for portraits, for landscapes, for wildlife, etc.)
* with any half decent lens, you'll get better image quality than you could with a point & shoot.
* they have better depth of field - you can isolate your subject by blurring the background.
* they have more features for serious photographers - but you can also just put them in automatic mode.
SLR cameras also have a few down sides however:
* They can't shoot videos
* the screen on the back doesn't work as a live-preview
* they're more expensive (particularly if you start a lens collection)
* they're relatively bulky & heavy.
SLR cameras are built for performance over convenience - they're not the right choice for everyone. Single lens reflex.
It means what you see through the aperture of the camera is what you get, no mirrors are used. I don't know what it stands for but it used to mean that the image in the viewfinder is the same one that the lens sees, instead of a little hole that you looked through. But now that it's all digital I don't see how it's different. Single Lense Reflex meaning it has just onle lense and it is used to take pictures and position the image | 