Category: Photography Tips & Techniques

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Using Interchangeable Lenses

Interchangeable Lenses

Among the most essential part of a digital SLR is the lens- or, more properly, lenses, because, unlike other types of digital cameras, which might utilize add-on lens adapters, the lens of a DSLR is totally interchangeable. I’m not going to inform you much about how lenses work. The majority of the rest of this area will handle useful matters connecting to interchangeable lenses on a DSLR. The only things you truly need to understand about lenses are these:

â–  Lenses consist of precision-crafted pieces of optical glass (or plastic or ceramic product) called aspects, organized into groups that are moved together to alter the magnification or focus. The components may be based upon pieces of spheres, or not (in which case they are aspherical), and provided special finishes to decrease or get rid of undesirable reflections.

â–  Lenses include an iris-like opening called a diaphragm that can be changed in size to admit basically light to the sensing unit. In addition to adjusting the amount of light that passes through the lens, the diaphragm and its shape impact things like relative overall sharpness of an image, the amount of an image that remains in focus, the brightness of your view through the viewfinder, and even the shape and qualities of out-of-focus highlights in your image. I’ll describe these elements in more information as they show up.

â–  Lenses are installed in a real estate that keeps the aspects from rattling around and supplies a method to move them to change focus and magnification. The lens housing can include a microprocessor, a small motor for changing the focus (and, in non-DSLR electronic cameras, for zooming), and maybe a mechanism for reducing the effects of cam shake (called vibration reduction). Included are threads or a bayonet mount for attaching filters, a fitting that connects to your electronic camera, and different levers and electronic contacts for interacting with the cam body. You might find a switch or two for changing from autofocus to manual focus, locking a zoom lens so it doesn’t extend mistakenly while the cam is being carried, and a macro, lock/lockout button to restrict the looking for range of your autofocus mechanism so your lens won’t seek focus from infinity to a few inches away whenever you partly depress the shutter release. Everything else is details, and we’ll take a look at them in this and later chapters of this book. Lens Interchangeability The ability to remove a lens and swap it for another is one of the crucial advantages of the digital SLR. Interchangeable lenses make a very cool tool because they broaden the professional photographer’s flexibility in several ways:

â–  Swapping lenses lets you alter the “reach” of a lens, from wide-angle to medium telephoto to long telephoto. The zoom lenses on non-SLR cameras offer some of this flexibility, but they can’t provide the zoom of the longest telephotos and telephoto zooms, nor the wide-angle point of view of the quickest focal lengths discovered in some interchangeable lenses and zooms

â–  Interchangeable lenses let you pick a lens optimized for a particular function. Do everything zooms are necessarily a compromise that might perform fairly well in a broad series of applications, however excel at none of them. Using an SLR lets you select a lens, whether it’s a zoom or a repaired focal length lens (called a prime lens) that does a specific thing effectively undoubtedly. A lens with a zoom variety, extending from wide-angle to long telephoto might be plagued with distortion at one end of the variety or another (or both!). A multi-purpose lens is most likely much slower than an enhanced optic, perhaps with an f/4.5 or f/5.6 optimum aperture. With the schedule of interchangeable lenses, you can select a really quickly, f/1.4 lens when you need one, or select a lens that’s particularly excellent in a provided zoom range (say, 12-24mm). Select another lens for its splendid sharpness, or since it provides a dreamy blurred effect that’s perfect for portraiture. Use zooms when you need them and prime lenses when they are better fit for a task.

â–  Lens swaps make it simple for those with extra-special requirements to discover some glass that fits their specific requirements. Fisheye lenses, those with a point of view control shifts, macro lenses for a bug’s eye view of that prize flower, or hyper-expensive super-long telephoto optics with built-in correction for electronic camera shake are offered to anyone who can afford them. As you know, however, lenses aren’t definitely interchangeable. Lenses designed to fit on one specific supplier’s brand name of video camera probably won’t fit on another supplier’s cam (although there are exceptions), and it’s highly most likely that you’ll discover that many lenses produced by the manufacturer of your digital SLR can’t be used with present cam designs. I can’t provide a thorough lens compatibility chart here, because there are hundreds of various lenses readily available, however you might discover some of the guidelines in this section helpful. The first thing to understand is that lens compatibility isn’t even a problem unless you have older lenses that you wish to use with your current digital camera. If you have no lenses to move to your new camera body, it makes no distinction, from a lens perspective, whether you choose a Nikon, Canon, Sony, Olympus, Pentax, or another DSLR. You’ll want to purchase existing lenses produced your video camera by the vendor, or by 3rd parties such as Tokina, Sigma, or Tamron, to fit your electronic camera. One exception might be if you had a hankering for an older lens that you might acquire used at an attractive cost. In that case, you’ll have an interest in whether that older lens will fit your new camera. You likewise might be thinking about backwards compatibility if you own a lot of costly optics that you want to use with your brand-new electronic camera. That compatibility depends a lot on the style approach of the video camera vendor. It’s easier to create an entire brand-new line of lenses for a new camera system than to find out how to utilize older lenses on the current devices. Some vendors opt for bleeding-edge innovation at the expenditure of compatibility with earlier lenses. Others bend over backwards compatibility.

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Is a Compact SLR Good For You?

DSLR vs Compact

What does SLR stand for?

A single -lens reflex cam (SLR) is a cam that typically utilizes a mirror and prism system (thus “reflex” from the mirror’s reflection) that allows the photographer to see through the lens and see exactly what will be caught.

Compact SLR’s, like normal DSLRs, they accept a wide variety of various lenses – from fast and brilliant ultra-wide lenses cramming in loads of information, to far-reaching telephotos that bring your world more detailed – and use a higher platform for creativity.

While DSLRs contain a mirror and prism system- making them big and heavy- compact SLR webcams are smaller sized and for that reason simple to bring about. Compared to point-and-shoot digital electronic cameras, all DSLRs are a bit on the chunky side. Some are more compact than others, particularly the Four Thirds models from Olympus and Panasonic are compact. Some models, particularly those with professional designs with large battery packs and vertical grips, border on the huge. Before you put down a large portion of modification for a digital cam, play with it to ensure it’s a size that you’ll be comfortable lugging around with you. The difference in weight alone can be significant if you’re walking around throughout the day with an electronic camera strap around your neck. If you’re the sort of professional photographer who would have enjoyed with a small, lightweight, virtually silent Leica rangefinder camera (which nevertheless produced exceptional images), you might also prefer a smaller DSLR’s. Heck, you may even want the Leica M9 or perhaps a Leica M10, a non-DSLR that looks and handles like a rangefinder film camera, however,produces 18 MP digital images (and might be costly, plus more for lenses). Because vein, do not forget to take into consideration the size of the lenses you’ll be using, too. My preferred digital SLR has a 28mm-200mm zoom lens that was promoted, on introduction, as the tiniest worldwide. I’m extremely happy I have that compact lens with such an extensive zoom variety, due to the fact that for lots of image trips, it’s all I need, and I can avoid carrying around a weighty video camera bag and a half dozen other lenses. I really went to Europe several years ago bring only that 28-200mm lens and a 17-24mm wide-angle zoom, and two DSLR bodies. My whole kit fit into a compact shoulder bag that was simple to lug with me all over I went. If you need a compact digital SLR, check out the size and weight of the lenses you are most likely to use at the same time you examine the heft of the camera body itself.

What Other Features Do You Need?

As soon as you have actually chosen your “must have” functions for your digital camera, you can also deal with those bonus offer features that are nice to have, but not essential. All digital SLRs share a long list of typical features, such as Manual, Aperture-priority, and Shutter-priority exposure modes. All have fantastic autofocus abilities. Lots of (however not all) have integrated flash systems that combine with the exposure system, and which can manage external, off camera flash units also (specifically beneficial when using several systems). Beyond this standard shopping list, you’ll find abilities offered in one SLR that are not discovered in others. You’ll need to choose just how crucial they are to you as you weigh which system to buy. Here are a few of the functions that vary the most from video camera to video camera.

■ Film making. The trend today is towards complete 1920 × 1080 HDTV moviemaking abilities. Nevertheless, a few non-video-capable designs remain on the market. And not all of the existing video cameras have the very same movie-friendly abilities. If video shooting is necessary to you, make sure your electronic camera has the capability to plug in a microphone, ideally a stereo microphone. In-camera editing includes let you cut, clips that run too long, reducing the editing procedure later on.

â–  Burst mode capabilities. If you shoot lots of sports, you’ll desire the ability to shoot as many frames per second as possible for as long as possible. Some video cameras shoot more frames per 2nd, and others have bigger buffers to let you catch more shots in one burst. For instance, one model grabs 4 fps for 32 JPEG images in one burst, or 11 RAW images. Another camera from the very same vendor ups the ante to 5 fps, but can record only 23 JPEG images in one blast. If you’ve got deep pockets, one top-of-the-line action SLR blazes through sports photography at a 10 fps clip for 100 or more images.

â–  Image stabilization/dust removal. Some SLRs might have vibration reduction built into the video camera. Other suppliers ask you to buy image-stabilized lenses, or may not have that ability at all. If you want to hand-hold your video camera at low shutter speeds, or require to take rock-steady telephoto shots without a tripod, despite shutter speed, you’ll wish to consider this ability. Electronic cameras that have internal anti-shake capabilities often use the capability to move the sensing unit rapidly to supply an anti-dust removal system. You’ll likewise discover dust cleaning capabilities in essentially all digital electronic cameras these days.

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What are compact system cameras?

compact camera

An increasingly popular sector of the electronic camera market is available in the form of the compact system camera, or hybrid electronic camera. Here we describe what Compact System Cameras are, why you might want one, and what’s available…

Once upon a time, if you wished to buy a digital electronic camera you’d have the choice of a compact, a bridge (a compact with a high-magnification zoom) or a DSLR. The step up to a DSLR was a big one, actually. DSLRs are much bigger than compacts not only due to the fact that they have much larger sensors, but because the seeing system that specifies them as DSLRs- a 45 ° mirror showing approximately a prism assembly and viewfinder eyepiece- uses up a lot of space.

Panasonic and Olympus were the first to realise that if you eliminated the DSLR’s optical watching assembly you might still have a large sensor, and interchangeable lenses, but the electronic camera could be much smaller sized, and the lenses could be smaller too. In 2008 Panasonic’s Lumix G1 was the first electronic camera with a DSLR sized sensing unit and interchangeable lenses to dispense with the mirror and prism, and switch the optical finder for an electronic one.

Compact System Cam (CSC) tends to be the most commonly accepted term for cams like this. MILC (Mirrorless Interchangeable Lens Electronic camera) or merely ILC, or simply “Mirrorless” are likewise used, along with “hybrid cams”. Whatever they’re called, every producer now has at least one such camera of its own, with an accompanying range of lenses, but the original aims of the first CSCs– to provide the image quality and interchangeable lenses of a DSLR, but in a smaller sized package– no longer necessarily use, as producers have actually plumped for a wide variety of various sensing unit sizes all the way approximately full-frame (35mm).

It’s most likely fair to say that today’s meaning of a CSC is a cam with interchangeable lenses however no mirror. Some have DSLR sensing units, some have smaller sized ones, some have electronic viewfinders, others have no viewfinder– just the LCD screen.

Here we provide a round-up of the various systems presently readily available, and what they have to use.

Why buy a compact system electronic cameras?

Compact System Cameras, or hybrid video cameras, are created for buyers looking for a video camera that provides lots of imaginative control, high image quality and the choice to attach various lenses, however who do not typically want the bulk of a DSLR. Some are almost as huge as a DSLR however provide a various user experience, due to the camera’s shape and style. Some utilize a smaller sensing unit, while we’re likewise progressively seeing terrific feats of design where the sensor is big, but the body remains little for the very best of both worlds.

Other aspects require to be taken into consideration too. Some CSCs use the contrast spot method of focusing, which is slower than the stage find technique utilized by DSLRs. This can make many CSCs normally less fit to action photography, though there are some exceptions– the Nikon 1 system is blisteringly fast, and a couple of CSCs have phase detect pixels constructed into the sensing unit.

Many CSCs have viewfinders, but some offer just an LCD screen, which can make them more difficult to use in intense sun. A few have the alternative of a clip-on EVF at extra cost. Of those with a viewfinder it will be electronic– the technology of which is rapidly enhancing every day and some offer extremely high resolutions.

Some video cameras with EVFs are styled like mini DSLRs, while others follow more of a rangefinder style. Neither is better, it’s down to personal taste. Finally, consider what other functions are necessary to you. What about video? All deal HD video but bit rates and compression options vary, and just a few offer an external mic input. Some also offer 4K video shooting. If you want Wi-Fi, the bright side is that it’s tough to find a current CSC design without it. Such a feature not just lets you release online straight from the camera however often likewise enables you to control the video camera remotely with a smart device.

Sensor sizes and image quality

As a really general guideline (and there are numerous significant exceptions), larger electronic cameras have larger sensors, which produce better quality images, so choosing a system entails first deciding how crucial image quality is compared with mobility and convenience. It’s now possible to find CSCs or hybrid electronic cameras with sensing units varying all the way up to full-frame (35mm). It ought to be mentioned that even the smallest video cameras can produce high quality images to at least A4 at the lower ISO settings, and it’s just when you go larger than that, crop greatly, or utilize high ISOs that the more knowledgeable, critical eye can discern the differences between the systems. So how do the sensing unit sizes vary between the electronic camera systems? This diagram (below) highlights the relative sizes of the sensors used by the various CSC manufacturers. The biggest, full-frame, is the one utilized in expert and high-end enthusiast DSLRs, while the second largest, APS-C, is the one used in many customer DSLRs. The Pentax Q7 uses a little sensor (1/1.7 in) frequently used in some higher-end compacts.