Re: Thirteen Reasons to choose a Digital SLR over a Point and Shoot

On Mon, 03 Nov 2008 14:41:54 -0800, SMS wrote:

With all the misinformation being posted by our friend with multiple
personalities, I thought that it would be a good idea to repost the
facts regarding the advantages of digital SLRs over digital P&S cameras.
If I've missed any of the advantages please follow-up with them.

Thirteen Reasons to choose a Digital SLR over a Point and Shoot

1. You shoot in low light.
Modern digital SLRs are able to produce low noise images at ISO speeds
up to 1600, depending on the camera. Point and shoot cameras, with their
small sensors, begin to exhibit noise at ISO 200, with some poorer
models being too noisy even at 100 ISO.

2. You want to use flash attachments. While a few higher end point and
shoot digital models have hot shoes for an external flash, most do not.
Some Canon P&S models without hot shoes can use a wireless flash, but
it's not a great flash unit.

3. You need a wide-angle lens.
Digital SLRs have super-wide-angle zoom lenses available with an
effective focal length of as little as 16mm. There are no point and
shoot digital cameras with lenses that wide. With some point and shoot
cameras you can add on adapters to increase the wide-angle range, but
even the best adapters are of mediocre quality.

4. You need a long telephoto lens.
Whether it’s doing wildlife photography in Alaska, or shooting at
sporting events, only a digital SLR can use long telephoto lenses. If
you only need a specialty lens for rare occasions, you can even rent one
for a couple of days. With some point and shoot cameras you can add on
adapters to increase the telephoto range but even the best adapters are
of mediocre quality.

5. You need fast auto-focus.
Most digital SLRs (with the exception of Pentax) use lenses with
internal high-speed focusing motors). Point and shoot digital cameras
cannot focus nearly as fast.

6. You need low shutter lag.
Whether it’s photographing your child on a merry-go-round, or capturing
the crack of the bat against the baseball, you cannot obtain these shots
with a digital point and shoot camera because the time between when you
press the shutter and the image is captured is far too long. A digital
SLR has a mechanical shutter that opens instantaneously when the shutter
release button is pressed. In a point and shoot camera, the sensor is
activated electronically after it is used to focus the shot.

7. You want to produce images that can be printed in large sizes. Only a
high-resolution digital SLR is suitable for poster size prints.

8. You want an optical viewfinder.
While a few point and shoot cameras have retained an optical viewfinder,
it’s been cost-reduced out of most models. Composing a picture on the
LCD screen, in bright sunlight, is very difficult.

There is another option: an ElectronicViewFinder. Looks and works pretty
much like an optical viewfinder, only better. It shows exactly what the
sensor sees. canon and some others have typically distributed models with
grossly undersampled EVFs, but it's not difficult to find a decent one -
Kodak, for example.


9. You want full manual control.
While some high-end point and shoot models have retained some level of
manual control, most have cost-reduced it out. On some Canon models,
there is third-party software that can get some of the manual control
back, but it's very flaky and complicated.

Like the Kodak P series which has full manual modes.


10. Expandability and upgradability.
Not only a wide variety of specialty lenses, but flash attachments,
filters, vertical grips, remote shutter releases, etc. If you eventually
want to upgrade to a better D-SLR body, a lot of the lenses and
accessories can be used on the new body if it’s from the same
manufacturer.

11. Rapid sequencing. For action shots, both of sports and people, you
can get the exact shot you want, even when the people are moving.

12. Cost. Say what? Yes, it’s true. With the free-fall of digital SLR
prices, you can now buy a D-SLR and a decent lens for less than the cost
of a high end point and shoot camera.

A decent lens pretty much does away with about half of your other claims
which are based on (mostly expensive) additional lenses.


13. Wide-range walk-around lenses. It used to be that people would buy a
wide-range “SLR-like” P&S because they could achieve a wide zoom range
from wide-angle to telephoto without needing to change lenses, even
though the quality of these wide-range lenses wasn’t very good at the
ends. Now with several new wide-range D-SLR lenses, there is the option
of not having to change lenses. You can still use higher end wide angle
and telephoto lenses when the need arises, while enjoying the simplicity
of a wide-range zoom lens when you choose to be m

You forgot portability. Oh, that's right, the P&S has a definite advantage
there - perhaps, if you do much in the out of doors, an overwhelming one.
.

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