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.