Summary:
People stepping up from a point-and-shoot camera have a complex and expensive choice to make. This article introduces the concept of the ´bridge´ camera, and how the reader can tell whether they need a DSLR or not.

Details or Sample:
Sometimes when you take a lot of pictures, you start to see pictures you would like to take before you press the shutter button. This is called "pre-visualization" - and it can lead to frustration when the camera we have just won´t do what you´re seeing in your head. This can happen on vacation, at a family reunion, or taking pictures of our garden, but there´s only one cure - get a ´better´ camera. "Better" can be subjective, though. To one person it can mean buying a good point and shoot rather than the single-use cameras they´ve been taking pictures with, but to someone else it might mean spending thousands on a single lens. One of the most common scenarios is one where you realize that you might need a DSLR, with its wide range of accessories and interchangeable lenses.

When you´ve outgrown your point and shoot camera and decided to move up, you´re faced with a bewildering array of choices in megapixels and features. The camera manufacturers frequently release multiple cameras that are essentially identical except for a certain selection of features, and this can lead to significant confusion. Most of the manufacturers are fighting for this segment of the market because it´s very lucrative because of the large number of such cameras sold, but the competition is even tighter when it comes to DSLRs - they´re flagship products that lead the marque. These lines can have upwards of 100 lenses available for them, and may cost anywhere from a few hundred dollars to several thousand dollars. No matter how you cut it, the DSLR is the king of the digital camera world.

There´s an intermediary class of camera, though, known as the "bridge" camera. These are cameras that aren´t quite DSLRs (although they often look very similar) but aren´t exactly point-and-shoot cameras, either. They have megapixel ranges similar to those in DSLRs, coupled with wide-ranging zooms. Their lenses tend to be ´faster´ - that is, let in more light - than standard point-and-shoot cameras, and they tend to have more advanced option sets. With the advent of wide-range zooms using aspherical elements that allow much higher quality than historical zooms, these kinds of cameras become practical for many people that otherwise would be buying DSLR cameras. If you think that one wide-range zoom would serve most of your purposes, then a bridge camera might be the perfect choice for you.

What kinds of features would help you differentiate your own needs between a DSLR and a bridge camera? Well, first, if you think you want to change lenses, you´ll need to go to a DSLR. You might think that you want to take photographs that require a very long telephoto lens, for instance, while most of the time you just want a ´short zoom´ that´s a mild wide angle to a short telephoto, for snapshots and the like. Another reason to choose a DSLR might be when you require the absolute highest quality at all focal lengths; the wide zooms in bridge cameras must make trade-offs in image quality; they generally have very good lenses, but excellence is usually reserved for the high-end DSLR lenses.

DSLRs tend to have larger image sensors, as well. This translates, generally, into better low-light performance. When you combine that with the fact that many lenses available for DSLRs are very fast, the DSLR becomes an unbeatable available light camera by comparison. That said, with the modern advances in image stabilization, you can sometimes get by with slower lenses because you can hand hold longer exposures, but modern DSLRs are adding image stabilization themselves, until in some cases you can hand-hold a 1/8 second exposure with a normal lens and have nearly half of them be sharp - combine that with an f1.4 or f2.0 lens and you´ve got a real low light powerhouse.

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Written by: jstevewhite
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