What is a (D)SLR? The Single Lens Reflex is so named because it has a mirror (and a single lens). But to really understand how the SLR got its name it’s important to go back to the days before it existed.

Before the [35mm] SLR became popular, there was the Rangefinder cameras (that used an optical viewfinder and a rangefinder mechanism to determine when the lens was in focus) and the Twin Lens Reflex camera (that had two lenses, one to view the image on a screen by way of a mirror, and a second one to record the picture).

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Officials in Haiti estimate that over 100,000 may have perished in yesterday’s 7.0 earthquake.

Images: Boston.com [warning: graphic]

How you can help:

• UNICEF
• American Red Cross
• Canadian Red Cross

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Editor’s note: We published this tutorial last month but I believe many of you may have missed it, so here it is again.

Many beginner photographers consider their cameras to be good if the latter can produce very sharp pictures. But professional photographers appreciate a camera (or more precisely, a camera’s lens) that can take a sharp main subject and an out-of-focus background. By throwing the background out of focus (i.e. blurred), the main subject is isolated and seems to “pop out” of the picture for maximum impact.

How do we add background blur to our pictures? By using a large aperture on a standard or telephoto lens. On a 35mm camera lens, an aperture of f/4 is considered large enough to throw the background nicely out of focus. Unfortunately, on most compact digicams, the focal length of the lens is too small to be able to throw the background out of focus even when you use a relatively large aperture.

Bokeh is the out-of-focus areas -- I like this picture even though the background is distracting