Single-lens reflex camera

A camera that uses one lens for viewing and image capture, directing the viewfinder image through a movable mirror. Raising the mirror exposes the sensor or film during an exposure.

Reflex mirror: A movable mirror that directs light from a camera lens toward the viewfinder and flips away during exposure. It sends the lens image upward for viewing, then clears the path to the sensor or film.
Camera obscura: An optical arrangement in which light passing through an opening projects an image onto an opposite surface. The SLR's lens forms an image by the same basic projection principle.
Thomas Sutton: An English photographer and inventor who built an early single-lens reflex camera in 1861. His camera demonstrated the defining reflex-mirror arrangement decades before SLRs became common.
35 mm photography: Photography using 35 mm film, commonly in a frame measuring 24 by 36 millimeters. The compact 35 mm SLR became a widely used format for general and professional photography.
Rangefinder camera: A camera that focuses using a separate range-measuring viewfinder rather than viewing through the taking lens. Its separate viewfinder can show a different framing from the lens, unlike an SLR's through-the-lens view.
Pentaprism: A multi-sided optical prism that redirects light while preserving the orientation of an image. It turns the inverted image from the focusing screen into an upright, correctly oriented view.
Lens (optics): An optical element that refracts light to form or alter an image. The taking lens supplies the same image for composition, focusing, and capture.
Hermann Krone: A German photographer and photographic historian who designed early reflex cameras in the nineteenth century. His work helped develop reflex-camera designs during the technology's early period.
Medium format: A class of photographic formats larger than 35 mm film and smaller than large format. Medium-format SLRs trade portability for larger negatives or sensors and greater image detail.
Twin-lens reflex camera: A camera with separate lenses for viewing and image capture, usually linked to focus adjustment. Its two-lens arrangement avoids a moving mirror but can produce parallax between view and capture.

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