SLR vs Compact (Fixed Lens) cameras

SLR Cameras:
Advantages:

·         Normally better image quality which stands out indoor or in low light compared to small compact cameras

·         Provides to ability to control Depth of Field (or selective focusing) to keep certain things in focus everything else out of focus. The kit lens are limited in this capability but you can achieve greater control with fast or wide aperture lenses.

·         You can change lenses and use many accessories like external flash, remote control, filters, extension tubes, macro tubes etc.

·         Better build, better life.

·         Normally they offer lot of manual controls

Issues:

·         Bulky and difficult to carry around

·         Normally expensive. Accessories like lenses etc can also cost significant money.

·         In good light or in outdoor use, there is not much advantage unless filters are used.

Compact Cameras:
Advantages:

·         They are cheaper.

·         Easy to carry around. Compact in size.

·         You can get tremendous zoom up to 60x in some of the cameras. This comes vary handy in outdoor photos and in travel. It is difficult to get this kind of zoom in SLR cameras.

·         In outdoor, good light, they are as good as any camera. They work great in landscape cameras or in situations where you want most things in the scene in focus.

·         Compact cameras offer macro shots. In macro mode, camera can focus on things very close to camera. To get similar ability in an expensive SLR, you will need a dedicated Macro lens. By nature, compact cameras offer great macro photography.

Issues:

·         Many models do not offer enough manual controls

·         They struggle in low light or in indoor photography

·         Don’t have options to use many accessories like different lenses, filters, external flash etc.

·         It is difficult to achieve bokeh or background blur with small sensors and tiny lenses.

Video comparison- Compact Camera vs SLR/Mirrorless

These days we use our cameras to take videos too. Most compact cameras do good job with video too provided the light is good. However in low light, most of the sub$400 compact cameras will frustrate us. In low light, video will be very grainy.
I had a chance few days back to shoot video with a regular compact camera sensor as well as with a SLR like Mirrorless camera (with APS-C sized sensor).

Here is the video that I shot with a Sony Bloggie (actually supposed to be a bit better than most compact cameras when it comes to recording HD video because Bloggy is made from video recording perspective.)


I also had a larger sensor Pentax K-01 handy and as you can see, because of a larger sensor and with abilitiy to take better photos even at higher sensitivity, it did a decent job in same light conditions.


(sorry, the songs are in Hindi/Indian language)