What is a digital SLR?

SLR stands for Single Lens Reflex. The basics are that before you take a photo, the light comes throught the lens and is bounced 90 degrees upwards by a mirror and then reflected by a pentaprism through the viewfinder to the photographers eye. When you take a photo, the mirror flips up out of the way and the shutter opens allowing the light to hit the image sensor (or film if non-digital). So - what you see through the viewfinder is the same image that will be recorded.

This wikipedia article has loads more technical info on SLRs

That's all very well but why did I want to spend £500 hard-earned cash to buy one?

1. Well, it is a design of camera which allows a lot more creative control than a compact camera. You have complete manual control over all the settings when taking pictures.
   
2. Compared to a compact camera an SLR will generally produce higher quality images.


3. Most models have a huge number of compatible lenses. This means you can use a specialist lens appropriate for a particular scenario (i.e. wide angle for landscapes, telephoto for nature etc.).

Anyway - this is what a digital SLR camera would typically look like:

Because the lenses are interchangable then when buying an SLR you have the choice of buying just the body or with a lens. Most models can be supplied with a kit lens which is a cheap multi-purpose lens to get you going which is great if it is your first SLR. If you are upgrading though, you probably already have one or more lenses so you would probably buy the body only.

Click on the picture below to see it full size. It shows the basic SLR body and a selection of lenses including the basic kit lens I got with my camera on the left:

The price of SLR cameras is coming down all the time and as well as Canon & Nikon there are a lot of other manufacturers worth considering. Before you buy one though do plenty of research and go to a shop so you actually have a play with one. Buying from the internet once you have decided on what you want will probably save you a few pennies.

My new camera and other stuff

After reading many reviews I decided that I should put some birthday money to good use and buy myself a lovely new digital SLR camera.

This is a Canon EOS 350D which is the model I went for. It was the entry level SLR from Canon when I got it (it has now been superseded by the Canon EOS 400D). To confuse things in America this model is knows as a Rebel XT. Basically it is a really good entry level SLR camera and has great image quality and good features from a leading manufacturer. The other option I considered was the Nikon D40. I bought it for about £480 which was a bargain in 2006. Loads more options now though.

The camera came with a 18-55mm kit lens which is basically a standard cheap lens they bundle with the camera to get you started. It is ok but you can definately see the difference in build quality if you compare it to a higher spec. lens. Anyway - it was fine as a starter lens and I didn't want to get too hung up on the technology. Sayingy that - I did buy a second Tamron 70-300mm 4-5.6 lens too.

I also got a skylight filter for each lens. The ideas of this is that it is a cheap filter which does very little to the picture but protects the lens. So - rather than your expensive lens getting damaged or scratched, your £15 filter does instead. People use a UV filter for the same reason. I have since read that a skylight filter 'warms' the image up a little but I haven't really noticed it. I'll check at some point.

I also got a couple of memory cards to save pictures on. I got two 1 GB cards rather than one 2GB card. The reasoning behind this is that if you have two or more smaller cards then your eggs are not all in one basket (if all your pictures are on one card and it fails, you lose it or drop it in your pint you are properly stuffed).

I got a spare battery so I can always have a fully charged spare and swap when the first runs out of juice. Also an infra-red remote control so I can release the shutter without touching the camera (for long exposures).

The final bit of kit was a Tamrac Adventure 7 backpack to put all the other stuff in.
So this was my final shopping list:

• Canon EOS 350D SLR camera
• Canon EFS 18-55mm kit lens (came with camera)
• Tamron AF 70-300mm 4-5.6 lens
• Jessops 58mm Skylight 1A filter (to protect the Canon lens)
• Optex 62mm Skylight 1A filer (to protect the Tamron lens)
• Canon RC-1 remote control
• 2 x 1GB PNY 80x compact flash memory cards
• Spare battery for camer (Canon NB-2LH I think)
• Tamrac Adventure 7 camera backpack

And here is a picture of it some of it .....

What's this all about then?

The idea of this blog is to document my explorations into the world of photography.

Think of it as an online notebook. I have always been interested in photography but in the last year have decided to learn some theory and proactively push my knowledge and experience in order to become a better photographer.

I hope this blog will act as a reference on stuff I have learnt, document my thoughts and collate useful photography resources.

I don't care if people don't read it but if acts as a shortcut to other like-minded amateurs then happy days.

Laters,
Chris