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While the following pages are mainly concerned with DSLR cameras, there are many other cameras in use. Although digital technology has galloped ahead of traditional film technology, film is still very much alive and well.

Large-format cameras

Early photographers are associated with peering into giant cameras with black cloths over their heads. However, these cameras are not just of the past – large-format cameras, producing 10 × 8 inch and 5 × 4 inch negatives, were until recently always used for the highest-quality landscape, architectural, food and still life pictures that it was possible to take.

In the commercial world digital cameras have mostly taken over this area, but the large format is increasingly used by art photographers. It’s human nature that whenever there is a strong movement forward technologically there will always be a small but determined movement defiantly working with the older technology because it’s believed to be more elegant and to give a more aesthetically pleasing result. There are many young art photography students going right back to shooting 10 × 8 inch black and white film in search of the quality of images produced by the old masters of photography such as Edward Weston, Ansel Adams and Minor White and very many more.

A 1930s 35mm Leica rangefinder camera which incorporated the latest technology of its day and a cut-away of a 21st-century Canon DSLR, showing all its technical complexities.

Large-format cameras have many camera movements that allow the correction of perspective and the holding of focus from foreground to background on wide apertures. They are the ultimate recorders of tonal values, sharpness and fine detail.

Medium-format cameras

This category of camera includes those producing negatives measuring 6 × 9 cm, 6 × 7 cm, 6 × 6 cm, 6 × 4.5 cm. All use 120 and 220 roll film and the number of frames per film depends upon the format size.

Medium-format cameras have been the professional’s workhorses for years and with the digital age they still are, producing the highest-quality digital images possible. Most of the manufacturers make a film camera and a digital equivalent; some, such as Hasselblad, now embrace both film and digital technology in the same cameras, allowing you to attach either a film magazine or a magazine that contains a digital sensor.

Medium-format cameras are more expensive and more difficult to handle than 35mm cameras, but they are very versatile in their use. Most fashion and advertising photography is shot on medium format.