- A traditional key feature of SLR cameras that digital SLRs share is their ability to accept different lenses. You can have two or more lenses with the one camera body and change lenses as different shooting situations demand. This flexibility has been challenged of late by "super zoom" cameras, several of which offer as much as 15 times the optical zoom capacity. However, digital SLR aficionados would argue that the newcomer cameras are no match when it comes to picture quality.
- At the heart of digital photography is the sensor, which captures the photons, or particles of light. Digital SLR cameras are renowned for having larger sensors than their point-and-shoot alternatives. A digital sensor has millions of pixels, or photosites, collecting light during an exposure. A photosite is a pixel and its filter. Larger sensors generally mean more photons are captured, which usually translates into more picture data and detail.
- According to The Digital SLR Guide, image stabilization is a vital feature for digital SLR cameras. It serves photographers with unsteady hands and those who like to shoot without flash, even in conditions of low light. If you don't use flash, you generally select a slow shutter speed to make sure plenty of light enters the lens. Holding a camera perfectly still for even a fraction of a second is nearly impossible. Image stabilization does the job for you.
- A sizeable and brightly lit viewfinder is more important on a digital SLR camera than on a compact camera, as you use it to check settings and compose shots. Settings commonly visible in the viewfinder include autofocus mode, battery status, white balance setting and picture count. Many viewfinders are not able to show exactly what will be captured when you shoot. The viewfinder on the Nikon D90, for example, shows about 92 percent of the image as it will be captured.
Interchangeable Lenses
Sensor
Image Stabilization
Viewfinder
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