The Compact vs. SLR Review (part one)

According to my experience of digital compact, and on the other hand, SLR cameras, I now put them face-off. Looking out of my window into the dim evening light caused by the light pollution of Helsinki makes me feel like going to take some pictures and now that i'm temporarily without my SLR the compact camera would be the only choice. The greatest fallacy about compact cameras (which I from here on refer as CC) is that one can't take good pictures in low light conditions with them. Yes the smaller sensor of CC creates more easily some noise. Furthermore, the undeniable fact is the aperture value which or "lightness" of the CC is usually withing the range of 2.8-5.6 for a typical 4X-optical zoom. Yet there's some CCs with even f2.0 in the wide angle end of the zoom. So if one is willing to shoot hand held with limited light there's nothing to compete against SLRs attached with low-f prime lens. But if there's no need to freeze the motion with fast shutterspeed, the advantage of SLR is about to narrow. That is by the stabilizing effect of mono-, or even better, tripod. Unfortunately too few CC owners are enjoying the stabilizing gains and keep on blaming their poor eguipment on those blurry shots.

Despite the fact that I used to call my compact film camera "the magic box" there's almost nothing supernatural or extraordinary in the field of photography. Even with my math grades that was relatively fast to learn. Talking about exposure, there are only 2+1 factors in the equation which can be quite flexibly stated as follows: Exposure = ƒ(shutterspeed, aperture or f-number, and ISO-sensitivity). The basic knowledge to adapt is that in the stable light conditions increasing either shutterspeed or f-number ask more light to compensate the change . Controversaly increasing the ISO makes the image brighter, other variables staying constant. So now we have the background in place and return to the functionality of these two type of cameras. If I know decided to go out with the borrowed CC and a tripod, there's sill one problem to face. Namely, there are extremely limited ways to control the exposure because the camera just allows to manipulate the exposure as is. Thus for a well exposed photo there's usually only a few combinations of f/av and ISO. So if I wanted to create a long shutter speed photo of the moving cars i might find myself in front of major dilemma. With some cameras one is able to manipulate the shutter speed by focusing into darker area in the same distance and then hoping the miracles to happen. Saying this I have to admit that I enjoy the control of the exposure with my SLR. Maybe it's an unfair comparison that im going through here but the CC has its advantages, too. And Im not stating that there's no CC with real manual controls of the above mentioned functions (yet I've even owned a powershot A-series camera with those) but I just say not all of them do have.

About the brain-eater I introduced last time I haven't yet introduced the final statement. What I consider to be the main advantage of CCs, is their wide depth of field which can be translated as "the length that is within the focus range". The science behind On contrary, many CC owners see the very same characteristic the main come down of the camera. That does make sense for portrait photography where it is often needed to get the person to stand out from the background. For that the question is no more just about f-number and focal length of the camera. The distance of the optics from the sensor matters too. And the closer the lens is to the sensor, the wider the fepth of field becomes. So again SLR owners (users) are enjoying the flexibility of choices to reach their photographic goals. In the next episode, I'll come to the conclusion with the battle of the mouse and the elephant.


[Both of the photos have been taken with a compact camera. The former one with Canon Ixus50 and the latter with Canon PS A610]