Your daughter is ready to take her first steps.
She is sitting in the middle of the living room and rolls forward on her hands and knees. She tentatively assumes a standing position.
Suddenly it becomes clear to you that he is about to stagger across the room. You grab your compact digital camera and turn it on.
By the time the camera turns on, you’ve already taken a few steps. You point the camera at him, but he can’t focus in the dim light of the living room.
The moment is over: she is sitting down again and you are left without a photo to prove it.
If you hate missing out on moments like this, you need an alternative to your compact digital camera. Let me tell you about the benefits of a DSLR.
SLR defined
SLR stands for Single Lens Reflex, and there are two big differences between SLRs and compacts.
First, the image you see in an SLR viewfinder is the image the camera will take. Second, you can remove the camera lens and put a different lens in its place.
In addition to these two differences, there are many other features that make an SLR ideal for a family photographer.
instantly available
You don’t have to wait for a digital SLR to warm up.
Press the power switch and the camera is ready to go. You can even leave the camera on all the time if you want.
Digital SLRs have a “sleep” mode to preserve battery life. Simply press a button and the camera is “active” and ready to take the next photo.
Even fleeting moments won’t be lost waiting for the camera to start.
Fast and accurate autofocus
Digital SLRs have advanced autofocus systems.
They include multiple autofocus points and can use any of these points to quickly focus on your child, no matter how much they move.
There’s also a mode called predictive autofocus, which tracks your child’s movement and continuously adjusts to keep focus sharp.
larger sensors
Digital SLR cameras are much larger than compact cameras.
This provides a unique advantage: the photosensitive sensor inside a digital SLR is physically larger than the sensor inside a compact camera.
Larger sensors are more capable of producing high quality images even in low light conditions.
If you spend a lot of time taking pictures of your child indoors, you’ll really benefit from a digital SLR’s larger sensor size.
no more red eyes
You’ve probably had a lot of red eye when you used the flash on your compact digital camera.
This is because the flash of a compact camera is close to the lens and the light from the flash reflects off your child’s retina.
Each digital SLR flash appears away from the camera lens, virtually eliminating red-eye.
Although it’s easy to fix red eye with today’s photo editing software, is this how you really want to spend your time?
In summary
If you’re a parent and have been thinking about upgrading your compact digital camera for 3 years, I urge you to take a look at the available digital SLR models.
They have come down significantly in price over the last two years and are now cost competitive with compact cameras.
Think of it this way: It’s probably worth the extra money to know that you’ll never again miss out on an important milestone in your child’s life because your camera wasn’t ready.
