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The AF 35mm SLR The Most Versatile Camera Some camera types are better than others at specific tasks. For example, if you need to make really big blow-ups (or as a working pro, want to impress art directors), the larger negatives and transparencies produced by big medium- and large-format cameras are an advantage. If you do architectural photography or tabletop work, where perspective control and lots of depth of field are needed, field and view cameras are ideal. And if you need a camera you can tuck unobtrusively in a pocket and take anywhere, a compact 35mm or Advanced Photo System camera is just the ticket. But for the working photographer who has to shoot a wide variety of subjects and situations, or the serious amateur shooter who has a wide variety of photographic interests, the autofocus 35mm single-lens reflex camera is the way to go. The wide range of available lens focal lengths lets you handle subjects from shy wildlife and distant sports action to tiny macro subjects. The wide range of shutter speeds lets you shoot fast action and in the dark. Yes, for most photographers, the AF 35mm SLR is the most versatile camera type available today. Professional and serious amateur photographers use higher-end AF 35mm SLRs for photojournalism, advertising, sports action, portraits, close-ups, wildlife, landscapes, special effects . . . pretty much everything. These photographers want full manual control when they need it, but also love the speed and convenience of automatic focusing, exposure control and film advance. And the AF 35mm SLR gives them all that and more. But every AF 35mm SLR on the market also offers fully automatic operation, making it as easy to use as any point-and-shoot camera. While the earliest AF SLRs had serious performance limitations, technology has come a long way in a decade and a half. Today, even the entry-level models provide quick and accurate autofocusing in most shooting situations. And the top-end pro models perform well enough to suit working pros—in fact, professional sports and wildlife shooters and photojournalists have taken to them in tremendous numbers. Each 35mm AF SLR model offers something for everyone from point-and-shooter to serious photographer. All provide fully automatic point-and-shoot operation—even the top-end pro models. But they also let you set everything yourself when you want to do that. So as a newcomer grows in photographic skills and ambitions, he or she won't have to buy a new camera to continue his or her photographic growth. Another huge advantage of the 35mm SLR is through-the-lens (TTL) viewing—what you see in the viewfinder is what you'll get on the film, regardless of lens focal length or shooting distance. There are no parallax problems, and you can see the effects of filters and confirm focus because what you see in the viewfinder is the actual image formed by the lens. But for many, the biggest advantage of the 35mm AF SLR is the focal-length versatility provided by its interchangeable lenses. All of today's models (except Olympus's convenient all-in-one IS-series ZLR "zoom-lens reflexes," which have built-in power-zoom lenses) allow you to remove the lens that's on the camera and replace it with another—a fisheye, superwide-angle, supertelephoto, or a wide selection of zooms. Many manufacturers also offer specialty lenses: true 1:1 macro lenses in normal, short-tele and telephoto focal lengths; soft-focus lenses; shift lenses; lenses with built-in image stabilizers; and more. Whatever your focal-length need, 35mm AF SLRs can meet it—no other camera type offers such a great range of lens options. And lenses for 35mm SLRs are also generally much faster than those built into point-and-shoot compact cameras (especially zoom lenses), allowing you to shoot handheld in dimmer light. The downside, of course, is that you have to buy each lens you want separately. Photographers on a tight budget often buy one or two wide-range zoom lenses, such as a 28-105mm and a 100-300mm, or a 28-300mm, while pros generally prefer high-end fast single-focal-length lenses. Automation is great. It's not just a convenience, but a time- and shot-saver as well. When the camera sets the exposure and focus, and automatically advances the film after each shot, it speeds up shooting tremendously, making it possible to get shots you couldn't get if you had to take the time to do it all yourself—something not just point-and-shooters but even veteran pro photographers appreciate. And today's multi-segment metering systems and state-of-the-art autofocus systems are amazingly quick and accurate. Of course, there are times when even the best camera's automation will miss the exposure or focus point—times when a serious photographer will want to take matters into his or her own hands, and set the focus and/or exposure manually. All of today's AF 35mm SLRs—even the entry-level models—allow you to do set anything or everything manually whenever you wish to do so.
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