(Article continued from part 1)
Bigger in photography means, faster, better, stronger (and more expensive).
Many people will say the only advantage of a digital SLR is that it gives you the flexibility of interchangeable lenses.
I think that’s bullshit.
If it was true, then the days of the dSLR are surely numbered—EVIL has arrived. EVIL, for those of you who don’t know, is an acronym so new, it doesn’t have a Wikipedia page yet. EVIL stands for “electronic viewfinder, interchangeable lens” and they are a new class of camera I’ll talk about another time. Suffice it to say, EVIL will not replace SLR photography—in the same manner that APS-C has not yet dethroned 35mm (much to my surprise). Besides, a lesser-performing EVIL camera costs nearly twice as much as the kits in this article.
I believe the biggest advantage can be found in its name: Single-Lens Reflex.
In order to have a single-lens design, in order to house a reflex mirror, the dSLR has to be big—and bigger, in this case, means faster, better, stronger (and more expensive).
Elite Cafe, Pacific Heights, San Francisco, California
Leica M8, Carl-Zeiss Biogon 2,8/25 ZM T*
1/45sec @ ƒ2.8, ISO160, 25mm (34mm)
This portrait of Marie and her new Nikon D5000 entry dSLR kit was taken by an APS-H camera, which sits between APS-C and “full frame” in size. Even though this is taken with a wide-angle lens (25mm), you can easily see she really pops from the background.
From your art classes, you may have learned that perspective helps a 2D image show the 3D dimensionality. In photography, another tool, in addition to perspective, is focus via depth-of-field. Focus helps draw the eye, through the visual clutter, to the subject. This tool is nearly non-existent in a pocket digital.
By the way, the lens used in this photo is the highest resolution lens in its class ever produced—the parts that are in focus are really quite sharp. Computed depth-of-field is about half a foot (20cm).
Continue reading about Sometimes bigger is better after the jump