Unlike range finders that have a lens and a view finder separately, SLRs give you the option to see through the lens. The idea of 35mm photography was first conceived by a German named Oskar Barnack in 1931. He went on to design the prototypes and manufacture what is now the Leica. After World War II, German patents were made available for free and a lot of American and Japanese manufacturers made use of it.

With the digital revolution, the film on SLRs was replaced by digital sensors and this gave birth to Digital SLRs or simple DSLRs. A lot of models with interchangeable lenses have been released in 2012, including the Leica M, Pentax K-30 and the Olympus PEN E. Let us look at the top five DSLRs that were announced in 2012.

Nikon D4

This is a professional grade full frame camera from Nikon that was announced in January. The body is carved out of magnesium alloy and it is built to last. The camera also uses O-rings for weather protection and can be used under extreme weather conditions. One of the selling points of this camera is the high quality sensor and the ISO ratings that it can render. The camera uses the Nikon Expeed 3 processor and 91,000 pixels to meter and has the capability to shoot 10 frames per second. The buffer space is also impressive and on a continuous shooting mode, the Nikon D4 can shoot up to 200 pictures in JPEG format and up to 100 pictures in RAW. The recommended price of the Nikon D4 is $5999.95.

Canon EOS 5D Mark III

The Canon EOS 5D Mark III is a pro grade body that was announced by Canon in March and is built upon the 5D Mark II. Like the Nikon D4, it uses a sensor that measures 35mm X 24mm. The Mark III has an effective resolution of 16.4 megapixels. The AF system, with 61 points and 41 cross points is pretty impressive. It is a pretty fast camera and can shoot up to 6 frames a second. The Mark III has ISO ratings that range from 100 to 25600. The Mark III uses a DIGIC 5+ processor and has 100% coverage through the view finder. The Canon EOS 5D Mark III retails at $3499.

Nikon D800 and Nikon D800 E

This is again a professional grade body that was announced this year by Nikon. The sensor of the D800 is one of the best in the market and there is no visible noise even at high ISO ratings. The D800 has 36.3 mega pixels and uses 91,000 pixels to meter. Like the Nikon D4, the D800 uses the Expeed 3 sensor. It has 51 auto focus points and 15 cross points. The model comes in two flavors, the D800 and the D800E. The Nikon D800 E has sharper image quality by using a special anti-aliasing filter. The D800 retails at $2999.95 and the D800E retails at $3,299.95.


Canon EOS 6D

This full frame camera was announced by Canon in September. The Canon EOS 6D has a 20.2 megapixel CMOS sensor and has a built-in GPS functionality. It also has Wi-Fi connectivity and you can directly upload images to Facebook and other photo sharing sites. The 6D can also shoot high definition video and the videos can be directly uploaded to YouTube. This camera features a 11 point auto focus system and can shoot up to 4.5 frames per second in both RAW and JPEG. It features a TTL exposure metering system which uses 63 zones. The Canon EOS 6D retails at $2,899.

Nikon D600

The Nikon D600 falls in the same range as the Canon EOS 6D and was announced in September. The D600 uses the same image processing engine as the Nikon D4 and the D800. It has a full frame sensor with 24.3 megapixels (effective rate). The ISO ratings of the D600 range from 100 to 6400. It uses a 39 point auto focus system with 9 cross points and uses phase detection for the TTL metering. The Nikon D600 can shoot up to 5.5 frames per second and has live mode and video recording capabilities. The Nikon D600 retails at $2099.

These are the top five DSLRs that were launched in 2012.

Author Bio:
This is a guest post by Nathan Brown of buyatt.com, a site that offers savings and current information on what is uverse as well as att.com services.