To DSLR or not DSLR

<< 2008-01-20 00:31 >>

I started my digital photograpy career with a crappy Olympus camera I got for Christmas from my father. The camera may have been crappy, but I took lots of photos with it, and hugely enjoyed it. The trouble was that a lot of the photos came out really poorly, there was no zoom, and so on. So eventually I bought myself a higher-level compact digital from Canon, which I was really happy with.

However, with time I have become more critical of this camera, and have started to feel its limitations. I'm by no means a photo expert, but some things have started becoming painfully clear:

• It performs poorly in low light. I'm left with a choice between grainy photos or photos which are blurry because the shutter time is so long. Pub and conference photos are a real pain, but even at noon in good weather photos can come out grainy.
• Decreasing depth of field to make an object stand out sharply superimposed on a blurry background is impossible. I can do it with objects which are less than 10 cm from the lens, but not with anything that's further away.
• Poor dynamic range, in the sense that if the light is uneven, I can choose between having parts of the photo black or parts of it white because of over-exposure. This happens a lot with shadows, or strongly backlit scenes.
• On overcast days all colour is drained away, and any shot of anything under any circumstances comes out as lifeless and drained of colour.

However, the great advantage of a compact camera is that it is, well, compact. I can keep it in my pocket, or hanging from my wrist, without really noticing. DSLRs tend to be big and clunky. This is important, because bigger cameras tend to be left at home, and I shoot nearly all my photos on the go.

So, I have been wondering whether it's really worth it to get a DSLR, and how much of a difference it will really make. My mother recently got a Nikon D-40X, and so today I asked to borrow it, just so I could try it out and see whether I felt it was really worth the expense and extra weight. I took a few test pictures to try it out. Below are one from my current compact and one from the DSLR.

Flowers, at home

Flowers, at home

So, clearly using a DSLR makes a huge difference in low light performance, and also in the ability to reduce depth of field. The DSLR photo makes me look almost like a pro. It's entirely the camera's achievement, but I don't mind. I haven't been able to test the last two points (at home in my flat late at night), but it does seem like a DSLR really might help noticeably with those two, too.

So, off to the camera store. Pity it's Sunday tomorrow.

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