Twenty or so years ago you would be able to buy an all manual camera, for a fairly reasonable price. Adding automatic features would cost a lot more. Now a days, you can buy an automatic camera for a fairly reasonable price. Adding the Manual features is what will cost you much more. AUTO MODE / MANUAL MODE

MANUAL FEATURES

Auto mode will make all of critical decisions required to take a good photo. It will FOCUS, select EXPOSURE settings, calculate CORRERCT COLOR SETTINGS, and many other decisions. On the flip side, auto mode cant compose your shots for you. Sometimes it will not come up with the best decision. However, it is extremely capable and will almost always make a very good decision when it comes to taking a picture. AUTO MODE

The digital camera market is divided into two major categories, POINT-AND- SHOOT CAMERAS AND SINGLE LENS REFLEX (SLR CAMERAS) The term Point-and-shoot covers a huge range of sizes, body designs, and capabilities. POINT-AND-SHOOT OR SLR

With a Point-and-Shoot camera, you usually use the LCD screen on the back of the camera as your viewfinder. With this screen you can check the current status of your photo, and use the OPTICAL VIEWFINDER (help frame your shot.) Your P&S camera may also contain a built on flash, amongst other things. If your camera has an optical viewfinder then your camera has two lenses, your viewfinder looks through one, while the other is used to focus light onto the image sensor. POINT AND SHOOT CONT.

Single Lens Reflex essentially means that your camera’s viewfinder looks through the same lens that is used to focus light onto the image sensors inside the camera body. The advantage of the SLR viewfinder, is that it shows a much more accurate framing than the viewfinder on a typical point-and-shoot camera, it also shows the effects of any filters or lens attachments that you might have added. SLR

SLR along with P&S allows you to use the LCD screen, located on the back of the camera. HOWEVER, the optical viewfinder on an SLR will be much brighter and clearer, than what you see on an LCD screen on any other camera. SLR CONT.