Thoughts on the Digital SLR

I recently came into the possession (by choice, not accident) of a Nikon d60 digital SLR and would like to take just a little bit of blog space to ponder the intricacies of this camera.  While I'm still running through the 100 page plus technical manual (it makes you appreciate the technical writers patience in producing tedious explanation: "turn dial to ON"), I've already begun to evaluate the camera's abilities with dozens of replicate shots of mundane household objects--a choice of subject that suggests that the beauty of the digital might just be in the evanescence of its images.  The digital SLR is exactly what its namesake indicates: a perfect hybridization of the manual SLR and the digital point-and-shoot, thus combining the manual with the automatic, the expert with the amateur. Its a technology that, according to one of two supplemental DVDs in the packaging, unites "art with science."  

The automatic functions on the camera stem from the laymans digital: the preset icons on the dial that allow for night, action, portrait, and landscape shots, with the settings for each pre-calculated and not necessarily correct for every photographic moment.  The auto functions brought to the SLR by the digital tend toward homogenization: the auto settings are assumed averages that will not necessarily produce the best pictures.  The autofocus also comes with multiple caveats.  It will not work in a variety of normal situations: when taking pictures of geometric forms (like skyscrapers), when the subject and background are the same color, when there is both light and shade, when there is fine detail, etc.  Very quickly, I've realized that I have to switch all of the auto functions to manual, thus reverting back to my high school days with the old SLR. The only difference now is that the methods of storing and processing the photographs have been significantly de-materialized (you can edit photos directly on the d60). This still remains the great boon of the digital form.