SLR Camera: Magnificent History, Magical Future!

If you are new to the world of photography then you must be amazed at the choices available to you. It has taken more than a century of research to arrive at the glorious cameras of today. Actually cameras were around way before photography came into existence. The most useable photographic cameras had one serious flaw. You couldn’t see what you were really clicking!

This means that old cameras had two lenses, one for you to see through and another one that got the picture onto the reel! But SLR Camera changed all that!

So what is SLR anyway?

SLR stands for Single Lens Reflex; it is an automatic moving mirror system allowing the photographer to see exactly what will be captured on film. So the same lens is used for viewing and taking pictures. Although today they have been enhanced by many other functions, the early SLR camera was quite a revolution as for the first time what you saw is what you got! They took the approximation and guesswork out of photography.

In 1933 the world’s first SLR camera was released for 127mm roll film. It was called The Exakta A and was made by IHG - Industrie und Handels Gesellschaft - of Dresden. By 1936 they had came out with 35mm SLR cameras. But the Russian made Sport was the first to do so in 1935.

Nikon’s F series became the world’s first camera system in 1959. It brought on a new level of respect for Japanese manufacturers as well as SLR cameras.

Over the next 60 years these cameras evolved steadily, but in 1985 Minolta introduced their auto focus 35mm SLR camera. Called that Minolta Maxxum 7000, it rocked every ones thinking of how a camera should function. It was simple, light weight but complicated enough to be respected by serious professional photographers.

But SLR cameras don’t just have history, since the advent of digital photography; many digital cameras also adopted the SLR technology. These cameras have also gone digital. In fact the newer ones are so hi tech that they have video and audio recording capabilities without any compromise on the quality of their photographic image. SLR cameras should be your first choice if you are planning on getting into photography, even if just as a hobby. Even though an SLR camera looks like an old point-and-shoot, it offers better, brighter viewfinder and of course many functions and options to keep you busy for a long, long time!