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SLR Design
The design that made the SLR famous is based on the way the lens and camera body capture an image. When a user looks through the viewfinder he is not seeing the image itself. What he sees is a reflection. A mirror inside the camera body captures the image coming through the lens and bounces it up to the viewfinder. This system allows the user to see and photograph the exact image coming through the lens. A photographer using a cameras with the viewfinder on the side sees the image from an angle and not the true photograph image.
When the camera is triggered to take the image, the mirror inside the camera flips up for a split second to allow the image to be transferred to film or digital storage. Once done, the mirror pops back down again.
The Lens
The lens itself is designed to capture images with different speeds and light exposures. This is measured through two criteria: aperture size (the size of the lens-shutter opening) and f-stops (the amount of light exposure allowed). Changing these measurements can create images such as photographs taken with little light using a long exposure or blurred motion photographs of someone running by slowing the time the lens stays open. Numerous combinations with image conditions and light provide all sorts of photographic differences that become more art than just technical image capturing.
The standard SLR lens is detachable from the camera body to provide operational flexibility. The user is able to swap a zoom lens (i.e. a 75 mm to 300 mm adjustable size) for a fixed lens (i.e. a 22 mm size) that captures images in a wide angle. This allows a photographer to switch from a zoom lens that captures a close-up of an athlete in the middle of the field to a wide-angle lens for a picture of the entire stadium.
Storage Evolution
SLR cameras for decades used film, and the latest film-loading designs provided highly automated film advancement and computerized film-frame status. Then the digital age arrived in the 1990s.
While photos on film could be manipulated with various photo processing and scanned and manipulated by the same software used on digital photos, the actual image production either required knowing how to develop prints in a home darkroom or using a professional service. With digital cameras, the consumer can produce the image directly to his or her computer without a highly skilled professional's help or a home closet full of development chemicals and dipping trays.
Cameras now come in many digital-card sizes. SLR cameras started with the large CF digital card best seen in the Canon D30 model, the first true Canon digital SLR. Since then, SD and XD formats have become popular as well, with larger and larger storage sizes.
Power Sources
Original SLR cameras were manually operated. You loaded the film, focused by hand, pressed the trigger and advanced the film via thumb trigger. With later designs incorporating batteries, photographers could start relying on auto-advance and auto-focus features. Still later models came with rechargeable batteries, allowing users even more freedom by being able to use the same battery again and again. Today's SLR cameras still use rechargeable batteries but now come with long-lasting lithium batteries and attachments for additional battery power. Regardless of type, battery power is critical; without power the automated SLR doesn't work.
Conclusion
The SLR camera continues to be the photographer's workhorse, and it is expected to be the standard system used by journalists and hobbyists alike. Knowing a bit on how the SLR camera works opens the door to photography for any user, even one who prefers a basic automatic model.