Compact or DSLR?

Staff · Issue 28, Jan/Feb 2006 · pp. 19–21

Products mentioned: Fuji S2

For anyone taking up digital photography for the first time there is a lot to take in but in terms of camera choice there is really only two – ‘compact’ or ‘DSLR’ (digital single lens reflex). A compact digital camera, as the name implies, is usually small and light yet photographically speaking they are far from lightweight. The top end models boast 8 megapixels resolution which will satisfy the needs of most people in terms of output and print size and nearly all come with a useful zoom lens and flash built in. Even the lower megapixel models will produce excellent results and are much less expensive. Compact cameras work best taking when ‘jpg’ pictures. These are compressed image files with negligible quality loss and can be processed quickly by the camera’s electronics. Some compacts let you shoot ‘RAW’ images where the data is left untouched but the image processing time is not real…