Digital SLR Buying Tips - Do You Really Need a DSLR?

In the digital era, more and more professional photographers, but also amateurs, switch from old film SLR cameras to their digital successors. While the price is four to five times bigger, you will surely find that the extra fee is justified by the added value.

The main benefits of SLR cameras are the detachable lenses and the viewfinder. With the interchangeable lens facility, you can use the ones designed for a certain purpose once at a time, or even combine them for better results. This is impossible to achieve with regular body cameras. Then, with DSLR’s, the image on the viewfinder is rendered through the lenses, which isn’t the case with other attachable lens cameras that may produce a different image than the one shown on the LCD screen.

A great advantage for film SLR owners is that most DSLR’s accept the lenses used by their analog predecessors, so you will not max out your credit cards on a new set of lenses if you decide to go digital.

Many believe that moving to DSLR is the right choice. If you have large quantities of photos to process, then film is no longer a viable alternative. With the decrease in the price of storage media, anyone can afford a 8GB or even larger memory card that can store thousands of high resolution photos.

If you are on a low budget but are still serious about photography, you could go for a high end body camera with at least 5 Megapixel resolution, which should be somewhere in the range of $5-800, much cheaper than a full blown DSLR. They don’t permit interchangeable lenses, but still offer fairly decent image control features. Keeping your old film SLR is also not out of question. The prices in this market are constantly dropping, so it will definitely not be long until you can get a full featured DSLR for half of today’s price. In the mean time, you can the feel of digital photography by scanning your pictures onto your hard drive.

Last, but not least, keep in mind that these digital SLR buying tips are derived from my own personal experience and should not be considered general truths. I am positive that there are many professional old school film SLR owners out there that will never go digital simply because they feel they don’t need it.

Getting the perfect SLR camera, is never an easy thing, especially with the way digital technology is constantly changing. Fortunately, there are plenty of helpful websites online, that can narrow down your search and help you find the DSLR camera with all the features important to you.