Essay About Film Cameras And Twin Lens Reflexes

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Digital photography has surpassed film photography
in popularity in recent years, a fact
that has relegated some amateur and professional
film cameras to the unlikely task of becoming a
paperweight. In the art world, however, film cameras are
coveted. The lesson is simple: choose the tools that you
need to get the results you want.
Just a couple of years ago a professional would have
chosen from a vast array of film camera types–single lens
reflexes, twin lens reflexes, rangefinders, and view cameras
to name a few–when selecting the tools of his or her
trade. Now, with the advent of digital technology and digital
software, the serious photographer can, for the most
part, rely on a digital single-lens reflex camera, or D-SLR.
A D-SLR is an incredibly advanced and refined tool
that still offers the all-important ability, as in film version
cameras, to view your subject through the same lens that
records the image onto your sensor. This is achieved via
a mirror and a pentaprism so that what you see is what
you get (often referred to as WYSIWYG). It is hard to
imagine that every time you press the shutter to take a
picture, a mirror between the rear of the lens and the
image sensor flips out of the way, the camera shutter
opens, and the sensor is exposed for the required time.
Meanwhile, the cameras microprocessor is writing the
multitude of information the image sensor has recorded
to the cameras memory card. This is incredible in itself.
Now consider how incredible are the cameras used by
sport and press photographers, which manage this at
eight frames a second!
For all intents and purposes, there are two types of
D-SLR cameras. The first is a traditional-looking camera
roughly based on the 35mm film camera bodies that
preceded it. Photographers who would normally use
both medium- and large-format professional cameras are
discovering that in some instances the modern high-end
D-SLR provides superior image quality when