People have always wondered how the camera really works. Yes we all know that when the light from the out side world is exposed to the film or the sensor in the camera the picture is taken. Let me give you all a pictorial explanation of this process which would give you all a better idea of the working.

Take a good look at the picture and try to understand and map your camera to the picture. Now as you could see in the picture the light passes through the lens to the first mirror (45 degree angle) which reflects it to the second mirror (45 degree angle) which in turn reflects it to a viewfinder. This is the concept of SLR where what the user sees is what he gets in the picture. SLR has only one lens, it uses the mirrors to reflect the image to the view finder and its the same image which gets exposed when the shutter and mirror one is displaced from front of the sensor. That is why in an SLR camera when ever you click there is a small lagging time when you see nothing in the view finder. This is the time when the mirror one is not reflecting anything to the mirror two.

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