Even digital SLRs have shutters.
It’s by design
For the same reason that 911 does not have Caller ID?
I had to call 911 yesterday because of a car PARKED on a US freeway.
The dispatcher asked me for my telephone number. I said, “You don’t have Caller ID?”
He said “no” and did not want to talk about it.
You could buy a car with what most of those cameras and lenses cost.
Point and shoot digital cameras take crappy pictures compared to SLRs and they are probably as quiet as they get.
Digital cameras click. And most of the wire services are dumping many digital images on the web immediately following an event.
My digital SLR still “clicks” even with all the warnings and indicators turned off. Some photographers still prefer old fashioned film.
So where can one readily buy flash bulbs and flash cubes? They worked great connected to trip wires.
When I take pictures I use my excellent Kodak P888 digital.When I take photographs I use my 30 year old Canon A-1 with Kodachrome 64.
It’s the mirrors in SLR’s that make all the noise flipping up and down, not the shutters. Especially when shooting in ‘burst mode’ (multiple frames per second) which is what press photographers do.
My digital camera does have a soft shutter click, but not the load whirr of the film advance. I sometimes think the noise is a soundtrack dubbed in just so us ignorant peasants would know people were taking a lot of pictures.
I don’t know about yours but the state of the art digital SLRs that I use have shutters that click and motors that re-cock the shutter. They are somewhat quieter than film cameras due to the winder/motor drive not having to advance an inch and a half of film through the gates.
Digital point and shoot cameras are indeed quiet but have limited optics and sub par picture quality compared to DSLRs.
Duguerreotypes [spelling highly suspect] were silent, right? Maybe they could do those again.
The press tends to use smaller microphones (the active element is relatively small) so they are more sensitive to a high frequency transient than a larger mike, or your ears.
The modern high end digtals still have a shutter and mirror, you can find camera reviews that have .wav recordings of the camera sounds. The mikes tend to “like” clicks and pops, so they pick up all those Nikon D90s and Canon 40Ds and DS-1’s working. The cameras tend to be close to the mikes, too- you see a small forest of shotgun mikes with low shrubbery of cameras blasting away in full-auto mode. Clack-clack-clack....
If I recall correctly, the “click” on the DSLR’s is the sound of the mirror moving out of the way. This is normal. The cameras certainly are not “antiques”.
http://media.the-digital-picture.com/Sounds/Canon-EOS-40D-Burst.mp3
here is a recording of a 40D in burst mode
The only noise missing from the old film days is the sound of the power winder. (But that can usually be simulated through a speaker.)
Marooon!
Maybe it’s more of a problem with microphone placement, than it is with camera clicks.