What's the difference between an SLR and non SLR digital camera?

Question

Please simplify your answer as I'm still an amateur! Thanx.

Answer 1

Besides the interchangeable lenses, direct viewfinder, price, and other things that others will surely mention, another huge difference is the size of the sensor.

Most point and shoots have a sensor that is only about 4x5 mm in size. The better ones have a sensor that is about 5x7 mm. DSLR's have at LEAST 15x23 mm sensors and some few have full-sized 24x36 mm sensors. Generally speaking, the bigger the sensor, the better the image - especially inlow-light situations.

Answer 2

SLR stands for single lens reflex. You can read about what an SLR is here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Single-lens_reflex_camera

but essentially, this means that there is a mirror that captures the image coming through the lens and reflects it through the viewfinder into your eye. When you take a photo with an SLR, the mirror pops up, the shutter open, and the exposure on film or digital sensor occurs. A non SLR digitial camera does not have this mirror, and instead has a viewfinder system seperate from the lens and sensor system. Many non SLR digital cameras have no optical viewfinder at all and instead, use a screen to show the image either on the back of the camera or in the viewfinder (and electronic viewfinder or EVF).

The differences between the two:

-- SLRs will take interchangeble lens systems while at best, consumer digicams will sometimes allow add on convertors (both wide angle and telephoto) over the fixed lens.

-- SLRs normally have larger sensors, although there are now several non SLR digicams that have APS-C sized sensors which are the same size as those found in consumer grade SLRs (like the Canon Digital Rebel and Nikon D40). There are lots of things related to sensor size including image noise, depth of field and the size of the camera).

-- SLRs also tend to have faster performance although some digicams now use the same software (like Canon DIgic II) and have similar performance.

-- SLRs normally have additional features since the people who buy them demand these additional features for the extra money they spend (examples would include depth of field preview, faster performance for frames per second and more complex metering types like spot metering).

Keep in mind, however, that there are certain non-SLR digicams that have many pro features and hefty price tags. Example would include the Canon G series and some of the niche brands like Leica.

Answer 3

SLR Digital Camera is for Professional Photographers and Non Digital Camera is for Compact Camera for Ametuer or didn't know more about the photographic techniques of the Photographers.

Answer 4

An SLR (Single-Lens Reflex) camera allows you to change lenses - wide-angle, normal, telephoto, zoom,etc. With non-SLR, you're stuck with whatever lens configuration comes with the camera.