A system camera is a camera with interchangeable components that constitutes the core of a system. Early representatives include Leica I Schraubgewinde (1930), Exakta (1936) and the Nikon F (1959). System cameras are often single-lens reflex (SLR) or twin-lens reflex (TLR) but can also be rangefinder cameras or, more recently, mirrorless interchangeable lens cameras.
Even point-and-shoot cameras often include a tripod socket. A system camera includes at the very least a camera body and separate, interchangeable lenses, whence the alternative name interchangeable-lens camera (ILC). In addition it often includes:
- Electronic flash units matching the camera's capabilities.
- PC socket or tripod-adapter mounts for external flash units, rather than just a hot shoe
- Mechanical, electric, or IR/RF remote shutter release.
- Extensive supplementary equipment for macro photography and photomicrography.
- Adapters for third-party or legacy lenses, including tilt-shift adapters
- For film cameras, a motor drive to advance the film automatically.
- For film cameras, different camera backs, e.g. large capacity for bulk film, or data back or datebacks for recording exposure and date information.
- Add on correction or magnifying lenses to help focusing or composition through the viewfinder.
- Interchangeable viewfinders, including interchangeable focusing screens in the case of SLRs. Viewfinders and focusing screens could give different metering options.
- Extra-capacity battery packs, often in the form of a "battery grip" (a second, portrait-oriented handgrip), but also including fully external packs with cable interface
- AC adapters with dummy-battery interfaces for studio or other stationary work
- Sockets and matching cables for direct output, e.g., to a television
- Depth-of-field preview
- Global navigation satellite system receivers, e.g. (GPS) for geotagging
- Bluetooth or Wifi networking modules
While some early mechanical interfaces are standardized across brands, optical and electronic interfaces are often proprietary. Hot shoes have a common interface for basic flash functions, but often contain proprietary contacts inside for advanced flashes and data modules.
| This systems-related article is a stub. You can help Wikipedia by expanding it. |
Famous quotes containing the words system and/or camera:
“My advice to people today is as follows: If you take the game of life seriously, if you take your nervous system seriously, if you take your sense organs seriously, if you take the energy process seriously, you must turn on, tune in, and drop out.”
—Timothy Leary (b. 1920)
“When van Gogh paints sunflowers, he reveals, or achieves, the vivid relation between himself, as man, and the sunflower, as sunflower, at that quick moment of time. His painting does not represent the sunflower itself. We shall never know what the sunflower itself is. And the camera will visualize the sunflower far more perfectly than van Gogh can.”
—D.H. (David Herbert)