Chapter 1. Digital Photography from 50,000 Feet

Digital photography has gone through some amazing changes since I wrote the first edition of this book. At that time, I was floored by the introduction of the original Canon Digital Rebel, a 6-megapixel single lens reflex (SLR) camera available for less than $1000. That Digital Rebel, I predicted, would be seen as the harbinger of a significant digital photography revolution.

After all, back in 2003, glorified point-and-shoot digital cameras with fixed lenses and optical viewfinders could cost more than $1,000. Canon’s innovation caused the entire industry to regroup. Such a low price point suddenly made digital photography more attractive to the millions of serious photographers who would settle for nothing less than an SLR, but who couldn’t afford the $2,000 tariff on even the least expensive models. Second, the presence of a $1,000 dSLR on the market meant that everyone else’s non-SLR models became much less attractive at that price. Vendors began dropping prices, packing their new cameras with more features, and digital photography immediately became even more of a booming mainstream consumer trend than ever before.