Five dSLR Downsides
Five dSLR Downsides
All is not perfect in digital SLR land. There are a few select things that are difficult to do with
a dSLR, and some problems that only digital single lens reflex owners have to contend with.
This section lists the leading cons.
? Lack of superwide lenses. Unless you own a full-frame dSLR, your digital’s focal length
multiplication factor must be figured in to calculate the true coverage of the lens. It’s nice
to have a 200mm lens magically transformed into a 300mm telephoto, but it’s not so great
when you discover that your 20mm wide angle is now an ordinary 30mm lens that barely
qualifies for the wide-angle designation. To get true wide-angle coverage, you’ll need a
prime (non-zoom) or zoom lens that starts at 17–18mm. Superwide lenses are more
expensive and harder to find.
When I added a digital camera body to my film camera kit, my widest existing compatible
lens was a favored 16mm semi-fish-eye lens that was the equivalent of a 24mm optic
on my new digital SLR. Many digital camera owners have success using similar fish-eye
lenses, and then “defishing” the finished pictures to correct for the distortion and produce
a conventional wide-angle view. I ended up going a different route and buying a
12mm–24mm zoom (for $1,000—about the same as my dSLR body) to get an 18mm to
36mm (equivalent) viewpoint. If you do like fish-eye views, you can also purchase prime
lenses in the 10mm range, but they are even more expensive. Anyone who likes the wideangle
viewpoint can expect to buy extra lenses. Of course, few non-dSLRs, other than one
new model from Nikon with a 24–85mm zoom, have zooms that go wider than 28mm,
either.
? No LCD preview or composing. The LCD on a dSLR can be used only for reviewing
photos or working with menus. Not a problem with through-the-lens viewing, you think?
Try taking a few pictures using an infra-red filter that blocks visible light. Your SLR view
is totally black, yet some non-dSLR camera’s LCDs show a dim, serviceable image under
such conditions. Moreover, some point-and-shoots have swiveling LCDs or swiveling bodies,
so you can hold the camera over your head or down below your waist and still view
the image. Want to take a self-portrait? Some non-dSLRs with swiveling lenses automatically
invert the image on the LCD so you can point the camera at yourself and still preview
the image you’re about to take.
? Dirt and dust. Make no mistake, if you change lenses at all your digital SLR will eventually
accumulate dust specks on the sensor that you’ll have to remove. I had my dSLR
all of two weeks and had changed the lenses maybe four times when I noticed a recurring
speck on all my photos. This dust is generally not difficult to remove and may not even
show up except in photos taken with a small f-stop, but the mere threat is enough to drive
you crazy. I find myself cleaning the sensor every time I go out for an important shoot,
fearful of coming home with 500 photos all marred by a dust speck. Oddly, this drawback
of the digital SLR is rarely discussed by vendors, yet it’s the most common problem
a dSLR owner is likely to encounter. Look for more vendors to include widgets like
Olympus’s Supersonic Wave Filter to shake the dust off before it causes a problem.
? Size, weight, and general clunkiness. Your dSLR is going to be much larger and weigh
more than whatever point-and-shoot digital camera you may be used to. If you’re switching
over from a film SLR, you may not notice the difference. Still, a dSLR will generally
be clunkier and noisier than a point-and-shoot digital, even with the fake noise turned
off.
? You can’t shoot movies with a dSLR. I actually took some nice sound movies of my son’s
acting debut in West Side Story using a 5MP point-and-shoot digital that could make 640
× 480 videos at 30 frames per second. Because of the way dSLRs operate, movies are
beyond their capabilities.
by
Mastering
Digital SLR
Photography
David D. Busch
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No LCD preview or composing
You can’t shoot movies with a dSLR
Was this really written in 2010? Google” DSLR liveview, or: House shot with Canon DSLR
.