Digital Cameras 2U

Prosumer cameras

Prosumer cameras or extended zoom cameras form a general group of higher end cameras that physically resemble SLR “professional” cameras and share some features, but are still geared towards consumers. Thus, the name prosumer from professional and consumer. These cameras tend to have a large optical zoom lens, which compromises a “do it all” ability with barrel distortion and pincushioning. Prosumer cameras are sometimes marketed as and confused with digital SLR cameras since the bodies resemble each other. The distinguishing characteristics are that prosumer cameras do not have a removable lens (although accessory wide angle or telephoto lenses can be attached to the front of the main lens), can usually take movies, record audio and the scene composition is done with either the LCD display or the electronic viewfinder (EVF). The overall performance tends to be slower than a true digital SLR, but they are capable of very good image quality while being more compact and lighter than DSLRs. The high-end models of this type have comparable resolutions to low and mid-range DSLRs Many of the these cameras can save in JPEG or .RAW format.