Digital Photography SLR

The day you get a digital SLR camera your life changes. So many buttons and and settings and dials! How are you ever going to learn what they all do?

Three years ago, I invested in my first DSLR camera. I had a passion for digital photography for a long time, and I thought I knew what I was doing! Shortly after unboxing my new toy, I learned that I had a long way to go before I would be able to shoot jaw-dropping pictures.

For the three months that followed, I researched everything - the settings, the lenses, shooting photos at night, accessories and gadgets. The problem was that for every good site out there, there are seven bad ones trying to sell you something! In fact, I probably should have just taken a class at the local college! It would have been a whole lot easier...

What I found is that in order to take great digital photos, you have to understand the inner workings of the camera and how it uses light to capture images. After all, what does shutter speed do? It allows you to control how long the shutter is open before taking the picture. Hence, shutter speed!

A Digital SLR (DSLR) is a digital camera that uses a mechanical mirror system and pentaprism to direct light from the lens to an optical viewfinder on the back of the camera. The image you see in the viewfinder is an approximate representation of the picture you'll snap if and when you pull the trigger. DSLRs are preferred by professional still photographers because they allow an accurate preview of framing, more so than the cheaper, lower quality consumer-grade digital cameras. They also allow for the photographer to change lenses which is great for a huge variety of shots from a single camera!

Now that you know how a DSLR camera works, do the settings make a little more sense to you?

The beauty of digital photography SLR cameras is how interchangeable the parts are. Between bags, lenses, tripods, remotes and lighting, there are thousands of different ways you can customize your setup (and customize your photographs)!