No word on low light performance? That's for me is one of the two primary reasons to have a dedicated camera (Olympus PEN-F) and not just use my iPhone 7+ camera whenever I go (the other is the degree of control over the creative process that you can only achieve with buttons and dials). If you do lots of indoor shooting (which I do), low light becomes a primary limiting factor in taking good photos.
Another factor is focal range. With a bigger sensor it's easier to have a wide field of view, again an advantage dedicated cameras have.
I disagree about APS-C and FF being the winners. I think FF has peaked, the traditional advantages of FF are compensated for in smaller formats by better sensor silicon (getting to better low light sensitivity for a given pixel size) and optics (F1.8, F1.4 and even F1.2 lenses). FF still has its place with pro photographers but for amateurs the cost, size and weight (not just the camera - that primary factor here are the lenses, which become very big and very expensive as you climb up the sensor size) make it impractical.
I think FF will rule for pro photographers and MFT, which is smaller than APS-C, will rule the amateur market. MFT cameras are pushing the definition of pocketable already, but they can be carried along with a small lens and be with you everywhere. I can probably fit my PEN-F with a 14mm Lumix pancake lens in my jacket pocket without too much hassle - and as the old saying goes, "the best camera is the one you have with you".
I know it's a small niche market but low-light performance is a huge factor for underwater photographers. Water molecules filter out most of the red light just a few meters down, and depending on water clarity the sunlight can be almost completely gone at 30m deep.
Low light performance is also critical for nature and landscape photographers who mostly shoot pre dawn and during sunset. In such situations you still cannot hand hold the camera, and will need a tripod. So the weight of the camera is less of an issue as you are already lugging a tripod. You probably can get away with those selfie sticks though I doubt the stability.
> Low light performance is also critical for nature and landscape photographers who mostly shoot pre dawn and during sunset.
Actually, landscape photographers care more about resolution and dynamic range than low light performance since most of the time they're shooting at base ISO on a tripod. Which is why cameras like the Sony A7R II (42 MP) and Nikon D810 (36 MP) are popular with landscape photographers.
Photographers who care about low light performance are typically shooting video or sports/wildlife so they shoot with cameras like the Sony A7S or Nikon D500.
While "performance" is undoubtedly top of the interest list for the HN crowd and many others, there's more to talk about.
The size of a sensor defines the fundamental "look" of the format, which is simplistically stated as the DoF for a given focal length, and not just the general field of view. That "look" is also made up of the lens characteristics, and in general, those lenses most popular or available for said format, i.e. 35/50mm for FF/35mm, 75/80mm for 645 or 6x6.
Creative decision making takes place outside of the moment of shooting, too, and having those options is a key reason my kit cupboard hosts everything from half-frame to 6x6, as well as mirrorless and FF digital cameras. In the past, fewer options have meant that amateurs and professionals alike operating on the same or similar platforms. In modern times, few amateurs that I know run digital medium format cameras. Actually, none.
While it's marvellous that my iPhone's performance is so good, but once past the pixel pushing, the tiny sensor is mercilessly exposed by my geriatric Leica M9 despite its "rubbish" sensor, because the look of FF combined with Zeiss glass is just fantastic. And it's always ready to do its job.
I think the best camera is the one that gets out of your way. iPhones are ponderous to get ready for shooting if locked, and when I need to take a picture, I need to take that picture.
(edit: apologies for any incoherence, just gotten home after 7.5 hour drive)
I'm very confused, how does sensor size have anything to do with DoF (depth of field)? Depth of field means how much is in focus and it's a function of the aperture of the lens.
I think what you mean is the sensor changes the effective focal length: a 50mm lens on FF is 50mm, on a Canon crop factor it gets a 1.6x multiplier, on Nikon I think it is 1.5x (sorry, haven't shot Nikon since film).
A FF Sony camera such as the Sony A7II with a lens like a 35mm f2.8 or 28mm f2 can be smaller and cheaper than an equivalent Fuji system, or even Olympus (although if you want f1.4 lenses, it's definitively going to be bigger).
My understanding was that the Sony lenses were so big due to the high quality required for the high resolutions (e.g. 42MP A7Rii). If you were happy with less resolution or a centre crop you could build a far smaller lens...
The size is more or less a physics limitation. If you want a fast lens then your lens elements must be larger in diameter. Then you have to add more elements for correcting aberrations that are more prominent at wide aperture, thus making the lens heavier. The resolution is less of a factor, and is more dependent on things like the glasses used and manufacturing tolerances. Most of the Sony lenses are merely comparable with Canon/Nikon lenses, and behind the Sigma Art lenses unless you are comparing the G-Master series, which are more comparable with high end Zeiss glass.
My personal fave lens ever is the Fuji 35mm F1.4, which somehow manages to be really modest in size, despite being fast and razor sharp. So, it can be done.
On the other end of the spectrum, my personal fave is the Canon 200mm f2 which is a big honking chunk of glass. The portraits that that thing can do are stunning.
I'm a subscriber to things being eventually optimized to their limit. Screen are still getting slightly bigger, but there's plenty of theoretical space for cameras to grow.
As long as bigger cameras perform better (and there's a demand for better performance) they will keep growing until they take up the entire back of the phone.
My bet is on micro lenses so small that the camera becomes a flat rectangle taking up most of one side of the phone, along with some crazy insane software processing.
> My bet is on micro lenses so small that the camera becomes a flat rectangle taking up most of one side of the phone, along with some crazy insane software processing.
As someone who does research on inverse signal recovery, what can be recovered nowadays is absolutely mindblowing. I work on the group synchronization problem, which aims to extract an underlying ground truth signal from noisy, shifted copies of that signal. In my case, I am extracting atomic environments from noisy rotated and permuted copies of an "archetypal" atomic environment, but I imagine the same technique applied to photography would produce stunning results. You would be surprised with the amount of noise for which you can still recover the true signal.
I've been following Light closely, and I'm curious to see how it plays out. Their early released images really aren't comparable to a DSLR (especially considering a $1700 retail price), but it seems obvious the long play is to figure out the technology and license it to smartphone manufacturers.
The problem I see with that though is
1) it's still too big
2) it's still too expensive and
3) I bet it adds an enormous amount of complexity to manufacturing
Lytro had really awesome technology something like 10 years ago for a camera that could focus on anything in the image (it didn't take pictures exactly, which was one of the problems, how do you manage the files which also happen to be gigantic). Awesome idea, but it just didn't work in the consumer market.
I would LOVE to see Light succeed and have a substantially better camera integrated into smartphones, and would even pay a few hundred dollars premium for it, but if that happens at all it's going to take years and I doubt many people will be happy to pay that much more when they just want to use Instagram.
I sold my old dslr and have been on the preorder list for light. Wish them the best but am on the fence for these reasons:
- the demo photos, like you mentioned have either a softness like you mentioned or colors that seem a bit too vibrant. Would like to see more examples of action photos, up close macros, and night shots.
- no stabilization - in their talk they mentioned this isn't practical and they'll sell a stick gimbal, though it seems odd when a smartphone has this.
- the delays, it took about a year longer than I initially expected (preorders are shipping this July)
- My own needs - I'm realizing I'm not that nuts of a photography enthusiast lately for the price of the camera.
There's also some hesitance when reading the founders mit technology review article where he hints that the end user will do more things in post with their first product until they leverage an fpga/asic for processing (I think they're currently using a snapdragon 820 with an fpga for triggering)
Still rooting for them though since I hated carrying even a micro 4:3 camera
Lytro had another more serious problem: the images were soft. Sure you could change focus in post processing but everything was still slightly fuzzier than with a regular camera.
AFAIK Lytro's new play is into the cinematic VR space.
They're working on a light field camera and stack that they advertise will allow the viewer to don a VR headset and view a live-action scene with 6 DOF, so long as the viewer doesn't move their head terribly far.
The early images released by Light aren't that great, and those are curated. You're paying 10x the cost for a modest improvement which is probably undetectable after going through an Instagram filter.
I hope the technology is awesome, but based on what I've seen (and heard from employees) it's not going to live up to the hype.
I'm not talking about "shooting in the dark", but rather getting high shutter speed, low noise images indoors where you'd swear there's enough light but you camera would stumble.
The rise of computational photography is going to considerably change the camera landscape. This is already getting mainstream with the "depth effect" in the iPhone 7+ and I believe that Google phones are doing something like that as well.
Eventually the only thing we'll care about in a sensor/lens system (with possibly more than one of each) is the amount of information they can capture, and how fast. All the other parameters (sensor size, optical design) that currently influence the final photographic features will be simulated in postproduction, similarly to how today we can accurately simulate digitally the classical chemical films (Velvia, Tri-X, ...), enabling a great deal of artistic freedom.
EDIT: I recommend watching this excellent presentation from the CTO of Light, a camera based on a sensor array, it goes into a lot of technical detail: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vKmC9xWHhM4
yes - but the same computational photography done on a Google Pixel can also be done on larger cameras. The Pentax K-1 for example can shift its sensor in 4 different directions for one single picture for increased dynamic range and color. So if one day you are able to simulate an amazing picture on a smartphone camera, with great deep learning filters, you could also create even more amazing pictures on a dedicated camera with a larger sensor. You'll just have to adapt the algorithms
That was my point: I'm not saying that phones will replace cameras for all uses (there are inevitable physical limits), just that cameras will look very different from what they look now.
Yeah but I think that the timeframe for smart cameras is a lot closer. Much of the theory behind computational photography has been well understood for a while and it's basically physical modeling and linear algebra.
It just requires large amounts of computational power to work in realtime, and this is becoming feasible now.
There's some truth in here, but I wanted to highlight this section as one which needs correction:
> He’s still using 4×5" and 8×10" film cameras, but I bet those medium-format puppies at #1 above could do the trick.
Perhaps that comment comes from not working with a large format camera, so there's plenty to forgive the author. A 55mm sensor, no matter how subtly it captures the light, can never produce a comparable picture.
There's a particular quality that enthusiastic photographers may have noticed when moving up sensor sizes. Despite the very similar field of view, there's a different look to a 35mm lens on an APS-C camera vs a 50mm lens on a full-frame camera. It's a factor of the character of the lens design in combination with the resulting field of view.
The images produced from a well-handled large format camera can be truly spectacular. Looking at a good, large print from an 8x10, you'll notice a much greater dimensionality in the image. The shadows may have subtleties and a level of smoothness that are unrecognised.
This isn't a digital/analogue snobbery thing - I love digital photography, and haven't shot film in quite some time. It's purely a physical size thing. I just doubt we're going to get an 8x10 sensor in a camera any time soon, so for now film still has a unique advantage, at least for those people willing to go through the hassle.
The reason to use 4x5 or larger is usually because you can tilt/swing the lens in various ways, thus adjusting in-camera for perspective problems.
As well, doing this, you can modify the plane of what is in-focus, which cannot be corrected for in current cameras. A typical example would be tilting the front of the camera (with the lens mounted on it) so that both near and far flowers would be perfectly in focus. see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scheimpflug_principle
Also, see http://www.betterlight.com/products4X5.html for an idea of file sizes and current # of pixels available: a 4x5 scanning back that does both 24bit and 48 bit color at 8000x10600 pixels is available for less than many medium format setups.
Tilt-shift lenses are nowhere near as flexible in terms of movements as a proper monorail view camera. Still, few people routinely need that extra flexibility.
LensBaby makes some lenses that tilt and some that have selective focus. Canon and Nikon and third party manufacturers make DSLR tilt-shift lenses that provide some of the movements possible with a technical camera. Typically, all the DSLR tilt-shift lenses are compatible with full frame sensors.
It's all about depth of field. With a given focal length, a smaller sensor/film camera forces you to stand further away from your subject than a larger one. The further you stand from your subject, the closer you get to focusing at infinity. When you focus at infinity, your depth of field comprises a huge range!
Large format cameras allow you to get closer to your subject (while achieving the same framing) and obtain an extremely shallow depth of field. Here's an example taken with a 4x5 camera [0]. Notice how her eyes are in perfect focus but the rest of the scene melts away into softness. A phone camera would put almost everything in this scene into sharp focus, making the foreground and background elements a lot more distracting.
Combine that with camera movements [1] and you can achieve many effects that are simply impossible with an SLR, let alone a P&S or phone camera.
What he's talking about is partly an optical effect caused by the enlargement of the image in different formats. Consider three film cameras--a 35mm, a MF, and a 4x5 LF camera, each with a lens that covers the same angle of view. That means that for a given film, the small format is compressed relative to the larger format--less film is used to capture detail and tonal variation. An object covering 2mm of film in one format may be covering 10mm of film in the larger format, but the film itself has the same amount of grain per mm in either case.
It may be difficult to make a direct comparison to digital, since pixel size and density vary so much across cameras, and those variable have a somewhat different affect on picture quality.
Lets just take resolution. IF you assume 4000 pixels per inch (which as far as I can tell is a reasonable estimate), then it is about (4000 * 4) * (4000 * 5) = 320MP for 4x5 film and (4000 * 8) * (4000 * 10) = 1280MP for 8x10. It's a very big difference.
For me, as a hobbyist, camera size is pretty important. I bought a Sony RX100 recently, which is the currently the leader, bar none, in small-sensor compacts. It's tiny, but I found that it's still large and heavy enough that if I'm not wearing a winter parka with big pockets, I'm unlikely to bring it with me. The iPhone is what's with me at all times. (I also have an Olympus OM-D mirrorless, which is very good, but that one only goes with me on holidays and special occasions.)
One major thing I discovered recently is that iPhone 7 (and maybe earlier models?) supports shooting RAW. With an app such as Lightroom or VSCO, you can shoot DNG images, and you get much better effective dynamic range. Blown-out bright spots or murky dark areas can be pulled down or up to bring out detail that would otherwise be lost with plain JPEG images.
That's been a game-changer. It almost makes the RX (which also does RAW) unnecessary. I use Lightroom because it syncs to the desktop version, so you can continue editing there, although the iPhone app is surprisingly good, too.
Another nice thing about RAW on the iPhone is that I've found the iPhone's built-in noise reduction to often be significantly too aggressive. I can get a lot more detail out, without objectionable noise, by carefully tweaking the noise reduction in Adobe Camera Raw. Now, I only would bother to do that with fewer than 1% of my photos, but it's sure nice to have the option.
DSLRs are quicker, sharper and have much better low light performance.
Smartphones make great pictures for normal people and its great but they don't have anything to do with a DSLR.
Consumer are using Smartphones. Consumers like my mother, who do not use smartphones daily and prefer pictures over smart, use compacts when taking pictures in there holidays.
Hobbieists might use a Mirror Less instead of a DSLR.
Pros will still use DSLRs.
I still use my Canon 60D and prefer it that way. Having a mirror instead of a display makes it faster and it uses less energy.
Leica, just forget it. Its price is for the craftmanship not for the image quality. Ifyou have nothing better to buy, of course but don't do it for the image quality. it is very good but not worth the price.
> Hobbieists might use a Mirror Less instead of a DSLR.
> Pros will still use DSLRs.
I imagine Kodak said something like this in the 90's: "Hobbyists might use digital cameras, but pros will still use film."
Your view is shortsighted. Mirrorless cameras don't beat DSLRs yet, but they're improving fast. Eventually they will be better, and DSLRs will go the way of film: a niche for a few devotees, but not used even by most professionals. The greater reliability afforded by having no moving parts guarantees it.
One application where DSLR provides advantages over mirrorless cameras is photographing moving objects (e.g. sports and wildlife) because optical viewfinders and phase detection autofocus provide a faster response than an electronic viewfinder and contrast detection autofocus. In rapidly changing scenes, the difference between a great shot and 'meh' is often a fraction of a second.
Another area might be the diversity and quantity and quality of available 35mm lenses due to decades of manufacture. There's a lot of existing good glass out in the world. Likewise, film still has a role when resolution really matters because a large format negative has several times the resolving power of even the most advanced medium format digital cameras.
Consumer grade DSLR's are pretty reliable, typically rated to 50,000+ shutter activations (which don't occur when shooting live view or videos). That's more than ten shots a day for more than ten years. Over a period of several years, most people are far more likely to replace their digital camera for the sake upgrades than because the shutter broke and most people are more likely to break their camera by dropping it than by taking too many images.
That's nothing against mirrorless cameras. They have advantages for many people and since a lot of people shoot their DSLR's in program mode without making technical considerations, mirrorless cameras are a reasonable (though not necessarily less costly) alternative.
>> a lot of people shoot their DSLR's in program mode without making technical considerations
Also, a lot of consumer DSLR buyers don't buy much more than a slow superzoom or a kit lens duo (~18-50 + 70-210/300), so they're not truly benefiting from the potential of their purchase beyond the larger sensor.
>> Kit lenses are often not what limits the quality of images people produce.
I did not say that though. I only said that they're not benefiting from the potential of their purchase.
Besides, a lot of consumers who buy DSLR kits are doing it on someone's recommendation. They aren't going to bother learning the craft of photography, and once the honeymoon period is over, they're going to get tired of carrying a bulky camera around and their whole purchase will start to collect dust.
Exactly. There are still a lot of good reasons to use a DSLR for some applications. But if you're using one with a crappy kit lens on Auto that you never take off, you're carrying a bigger camera than you need.
Even WRT the larger sensor, there are a bunch of much lighter and more compact mirrorless cameras that are either APS-C or micro 4-3rds.
The best mirrorless cameras have phase-detect AF built into the sensors - not yet up there with the best of DSLRs but getting there.
Also you can adapt any 35mm film DSLR lens to almost any mirrorless due to the short flange distance (between back of lens and sensor) so you can still use legacy glass.
I'm mostly a hobby shooter but shoot for/with pros at hockey tournaments.
For any sports shooting, mirrorless is a joke. Why? Because the viewfinder lags the action, you can't time a shot and get the puck going into the goal. Your only option is to shoot burst. Which sucks?
Why does burst suck? Because we're trying to take pictures to sell to the players (or more likely, the parents or SO of the players). We are expected to deliver a folder of "keepers" to the table where they are selling pictures. This is a low margin, very short half life type of deal. It's on us, as photographers, to delete all the non-keepers from the card before handing it over. All while being expected to get a keeper every 8 seconds (the actual pros can do that regularly, I average a keeper every 17 seconds in the last tournament).
My keeper rate is about 60-80%, closer to 80%, when I shoot single shot (I used to play hockey, I can time the shots pretty well). That's when I'm alert, dialed in, just shooting, not messing with the camera. That's with pro gear, used to be Canon 5DIII, now is Canon 1DX II. If I shoot burst, my keeper rate goes down to 2% (1DX bursts at 14 frames per second). It's simply not possible for me to shoot burst, delete all the ones we don't want, and get back to shooting every 8 seconds.
tl;dr: sports photographers disagree (both pro and enthusiast)
DSLR has much, much better battery life. The mirror also offers a degree of protection from dust for your shutter and sensor. There are less electronics that can break. These factors will guarantee DSLR usage by pros for the next 5-10 years at least.
Mirrors rarely (read: never) break through normal usage; the main advantage of mirrorless is not having to accommodate the mirror box which means cameras can be smaller.
There are tradeoffs that a DSLR makes to provide a through the lens optical viewfinder and phase detection autofocus. Mechanical complexity of a moving mirror and the bulk of a pentaprism in addition to the mirror bulk are among them. For some applications and some people the tradeoff is worth it for others it isn't.
If smaller size and lighter weight are more important then a mirrorless is more likely to be better.
The battery issue is not that simple. Mirrorless cameras need to keep the sensor active and the LCD or electronic viewfinder on during framing/composition, whereas the DSLR only needs to do this for the 1/60th of a second when the photo is being taken.
Bigger battery = The main weight of a DSLR body is already the battery. They can't go the Apple route of filling every possible space in the case with battery either because it needs to be replacacle.
If the reason for getting rid of the mirror is mechanical reliability I don't think it's a good idea to add something else that can break.
There isn't a technical reason, but rather which trade offs do you want to make? You can make a mirrorless camera that has every feature of an DSLR, but there is no point to do that if you lose the advantages of a mirrorless system (small and light).
I've had 2 DSLRs, and the first one broke a mount in the mirror in a way that it didn't flip up (automatically) any more. Took 50k images, but it did happen.
Can we kill off this "Kodak died because it didn't see digital coming" meme, please?
> I imagine Kodak said something like this in the 90's: "Hobbyists might use digital cameras, but pros will still use film."
It's quite clear they were not saying this in the 90s, because Kodak was selling insanely expensive professional digital cameras for all but one year of that decade.[0]
They were ahead of their competition in adapting to the digital era. They lost because Nikon and Canon ate their lunch with vastly superior digital cameras.
I think the big difference is the viewfinder. A viewfinder with 100% coverage gives you the exact picture you are seeing. Its sharp its quick its perfect and doesn't take up energy.
A digital viewfinder gives you the picture the camera gives you. This uses lots of energy and sucks in low light performance.
Where by "sucks" you mean "reveals what the actual picture you're going to get will look like", which on modern sensors is amazingly brighter than what your eyes think they see. EVFs are the future.
Not until they can shoot sports. Go to any big sporting event and you will see a sea of Canon 1DX FF bodies. For the burst fanatics, it will do 14 FPS and refocus and re-evaluate exposure each time. Lock those two and it will do 16 FPS.
I've played with mirrorless, bought one for my kid, I think they are a joke if you are shooting as a pro. I just don't see why I would want one. A phone or a point and shoot will fit in your pocket and they do a great job. If you want better results you step up to full frame. Mirrorless seems like a solution to a non-problem. To me.
Mirrorless cameras still have moving parts, though they don't have the viewfinder mirror.
And they won't displace SLRs until they electronic viewfinders have much higher quality, in several dimensions. I don't doubt that that will happen, but we're a long way from that.
>> DSLRs are quicker, sharper and have much better low light performance.
Sharpness and low light performance have less to do with the type of camera you're using than the sensor and lens combination you have. DSLRs might still be faster than mirrorless for action, but for the average person, that speed difference probably isn't meaningful enough to justify the added bulk.
For most people, the best camera is the one you have with you, and for most people, I highly doubt that's going to be an DSLR.
The camera most people have with them most of the time also makes phone calls. By the time a person brings a second camera, mirrorless and DSLR are approximately the same bulk. The photographer has something that uses a strap and perhaps a bag.
The price point of mirrorless cameras suggest to me that a substantial part of what is driving them is manufacturer's desire to introduce new systems for consumer sale. The problem with point and shoot cameras (also mirrorless) is the lack of follow on lens sales to create the idea of investment. Mirrorless cameras and their lenses are almost certainly cheaper than DSLR's to produce due to smaller size of bodies and lenses and the mechanical simplicity and smaller average sensor size of bodies. Those savings are not reflected in retail prices.
> By the time a person brings a second camera, mirrorless and DSLR are approximately the same bulk.
Not true. I use a mirrorless APS-C camera with a prime lens, and it's small enough to carry in a case on a backpack's shoulder strap while running. A DSLR would probably require a chest harness.
>Mirrorless cameras and their lenses are almost certainly cheaper than DSLR's to produce due to smaller size of bodies and lenses and the mechanical simplicity and smaller average sensor size of bodies.
But you do have an electronic viewfinder and you're cramming things into less physical space--at the offsetting benefit of eliminating some moving mechanical and optical parts which have been optimized over decades.
I don't have the numbers but I'm unconvinced absent evidence that mirrorless cameras are so much higher margin. The fact tht they're new systems that can't piggyback on decades of development may well play a role.
Although mirrorless cameras are not necessarily higher margin (though I suspect that they are based on reduced size and complexity), they are potentially higher revenue because purchasing used lenses and accessories is a significantly attractive option than with 35mm systems. Less diversity of options, fewer total available units compared to say a Canon 300mm f2.8.
Maybe. OTOH, big glass pretty much negates any advantage of mirrorless systems so (other than the effects of buying into a new system) there's less potential for add-on sales with mirrorless. But then most people don't buy many lenses anyway.
You are mixing up the sensor size and a certain technology (SLR). While most large-sensored cameras used to be DSLRs, this is no longer the case. "Sharper" and "low light performance" are tied to the sensor and the (interchangeable) lens. Nowadays, you get mirrorless cameras up to medium format size, as for example the Hasselblad. Or, in 35mm format, the Sony a7 series offers the best sensors.
And even the quicker is not necessarily any more true. The AF systems of the top of the line Nikon and Canon cameras are still the best, but the Olympus E-M1 MkII comes close to that - and no DSLR matches its up to 60 fps at full resolution.
I think the Canon 50MP sensors kinda stomp on the Sony ones, do they not? I haven't used either so it's an actual question. I know the landscape people are over the moon with the 50MP sensors.
That said, Sony has been kicking butt in sensor land, enough that the Nikon D800/D810 bodies sport Sony sensors, I believe the same ones as the a7 series.
This. Also note that the E-M1 has phase detect auto-focus built into the sensor (I think the top Sony mirrorless do too?). This is the tech leap that will close the gap between AF speed.
I don’t think the data supports your claim about sharper, and low-light performance. AFAIK the best low-light performance in the world is the Sony A7S, which is mirrorless. At the high end, I don’t think either of the mirrorless or SLR choices are significantly sharper than each other.
SLRs have been quicker but that advantage is diminishing fast.
However, you're right about batteries, I use a Fuji XT-1 and carry a couple of spare aftermarket batteries around in my camera bag. Which isn't a problem, I find.
Mirrorless cameras have huge advantages over DSLRs, not the least of which is (often) a half stop advantage, the ability to use almost any vintage lens from any manufacturer, and far less bulk. EVFs are really good now, and unlike traditional viewfinders the image you see in the EVF is literally what you will get, coloring and all. In no way is a mechanical mirror faster by nature, quite to the contrary. I can't see DSLRs surviving for long in the pro (or any other) market. Check out the alpha 7 series, it's pretty impressive.
A DSLT (Sony's translucent mirror cameras) != DSLR. IIRC, Canon had a pellicle based film SLR, but never in a digital model.
So basically that advantage is untrue. I thought your claim sounded fishy.
Mirrorless does not have a 1/2 stop advantage over a DSLR. When the mirror is flipped, there's nothing reducing the amount of light hitting the sensor beyond the lens. The advantage over the DSLT isn't noteworthy since very few people bought Sony Alpha DSLTs, and they're basically out of production.
That's quickly changing, Sony have now overtaken Nikon to become the number 2 seller of full frame cameras in the US. Nikon doesn't make a single full frame mirrorless camera and Sony most known for making them.
That statistic from Sony's press release feels opportunistic and cherry picked. Nikon have only released one FF camera in that window, and it costs £5,100. Sony released several and have momentum. I think when the successors to the D810 and D750 are released Nikon will pull ahead slightly.
In the longer term, mirrorless will overtake and pull further ahead of DSLR.
Sony didn't release any FF mirrorless in that period, in fact the latest FF mirrorless was released Sept 2015. I suspect it was the US discounts at that time.
The DSLR is on its way down and mirrorless has caught up, and even is surpassing the DSLR in many ways now. There are certainly very valid reasons why professionals would want to continue using their DSLR for now, but the differences are constantly being eroded away and it is only a matter of time where you are choosing between a couple of trade-offs between the systems for professional use.
Having more megapixels allows you to crop more without losing detail and effectively zoom in on different areas on the photo in post processing. It frees you from needing to perfectly compose your photo when you take it and it makes prime lenses almost as versatile as zooms for getting closer to your subject. It has an important effect on ergonomics because it lets you carry around a lightweight prime lens instead of a big heavy zoom and still be able to achieve similar results, or even better ones if you can take advantage of the prime's higher max aperture.
The article mentions tapping on screen to snap a photo. In my hands this tends to cause motion blur; are there apps where you slide your thumb side to side instead?
In high end phones pictures are taken continuously while the camera app is open. When you tap it saves the last one taken from just before you tapped, so there should be no motion blur from the tap itself.
If that's not working, you can also tap and hold which will take a burst. All the burst images will be saved, but modern gallery apps will automatically find the least blurry shot so you don't have to.
Practice resolved the issue for me. That's consistent with pretty much every aspect of photography in my experience: the more pictures I take, the better I feel about the average result.
It's still in the wrong place, balance-wise. The camera button should be as close to the edge as possible so that the thumb can counteract the depression force; otherwise, the picture may come out blurred.
Semi-Off Topic: Do DSLR cameras now support large/long video files? It seems that reviews don't seem to outright state whether or not there are limits to the length of capture.[0] Maybe I am just super behind the times?
My Canon T2i only supports video recording up to a certain amount (the size-limit of a single file in a FAT file system) or duration which I believe is 12 minutes—whichever comes first. Apparently this is based on European Union import laws about what constitutes photography equipment and what is a video capturing equipment and different tariffs.
Whether or not it's AVCHD or a single large-file does not matter to me. It seems like video is rarely reviewed in depth.
The 80D is a popular camera with YouTube content creators and it allows 30 minute videos. I don't know why the limit - perhaps to ensure that anyone even more serious about video than what the 80 can offer needs to buy a dedicated video camera?
That is what I've read. I would love if Canon or Nikon could create a setting that allows auto-restarts of video recording once the 30 minutes are up. And the next file automatically has the last X seconds of the previous file so that I can stitch them smoothly in an editor...
I know that Green Lantern can auto-restart video recordings, but I noticed that it can't really do that smoothly without dropping at least a second of video—at least on my T2i.
A limit of 30 minutes is not so bad. I am an orchestra conductor with photography "enthusiasms" and would love to have a DSLR that could satisfy the requirements for both. For conducting, I need a camera that can reliably record 2 hours. I have a cheap Sony 1080p camcorder that does the job but the image quality is not great and does not have an external mic port.
Most cameras can only record up to twenty or thirty minutes of video because the image sensor needs to cool down. These cameras are designed primarily for capturing still images, not video, which is the only reason this limit exists. It has nothing to do with taxes or market segmentation.
In this [0] interview, Head of Olympus Imaging Division hints at that being the case indeed:
> Technically, the major challenge is heat management. This is a stills-oriented camera, primarily, and that’s one of the reasons why [video recording] time is limited to 30 minutes. If we wanted to provide a more video-oriented product, we’d have to overcome heat.
The physical resolution of the screen is 2880x1800.
The scaled resolution modes work by rendering at 2x then downsampling. So in the mode you quote it is actually rendering at 3840x2400 (!!) then downsampling, but there's still only 2880x1800 physical pixels.
I have both, I've switched completely back to DSLR. Why? Ergonomics.
The primary advantage of mirrorless cameras is the smaller weight and size, but if you do extended photo sessions you'll soon find the weight difference doesn't really matter and the smaller size of a mirrorless is actually a disadvantage.
There's a very real reason professional DSLR bodies are massive with defined grips, it's because your hand can start to cramp or it can otherwise be uncomfortable to stay in position for a long time waiting on a shot if you have a small body or poor grip angles. When doing wildlife photography and insect photography this becomes incredibly obvious because both require patience since you can't control your subject.
At this point I either go out the door with my DSLR kit or I stick to my phone. A phone camera is very good these days and can even shoot in RAW with manual adjustments for everything but aperture. When I need to specifically do distance or macro photos, nothing beats a full sized DSLR on ergonomics.
I love the Sony tech, but unless they end up building an optional grip systems for their bodies I doubt I will ever attempt mirrorless again.
Huh, I greatly prefer the ergonomics of the Fuji XT-1/2 over the Pentax and Nikon DSLRs I've owned.
It may depend on the kind of photography you're doing too. For street photography and hiking I'd never go back to DSLR. They are simply bulky and (for street) do not look nearly as friendly.
I agree for street and some kinds of landscape photography that the more compact mirrorless bodies have an ergonomic advantage.
However, for things like sports, events, and weddings, where you are carrying the pro f/2.8 zooms (which are about the same size and weight whether it is on Sony or Canikon) on multiple bodies, I find that the well-defined grips and balanced handling of the Canikon pro bodies (and the OVF rather than the EVF) are less fatiguing personally.
As with many things, it depends. I have a fairly large Canon EOS system that I use with my 5D mk3. It's great. Extremely responsive, bright viewfinder, and nice long teles. It's absolutely my go to choice for sports, concerts, poorly lit speaking events, and wildlife.
That said, for my typical trip I take my Fujifilm gear because it's so much lighter and more compact. I just wish they'd do an X-E3.
I'm not going to get rid of my DSLR gear because I do use it but I know people who have.
I switched fully to mirrorless in 2013, long before they were really "ready" (or good enough to use). At first it was just for the fun of trying new tech and having a "more compact" that's still APS-C. The advantages were just too much and for hiking and street photography it felt much more comfortable to use a film-camera-sized (and lookalike).
I eventually sold off my nikon gear.
The XT-2: Dedicated aperture dial, ISO dial, shutter speed dial. Compact, looks more friendly to onlookers (can be important if you shoot street photography). I like the ergonomics of them a lot (esp compared to the Fuji E-series, which is not so good).
If you enjoy shooting film, it has a very similar feel.
For the foreseeable future, I suspect there will be a professional market for DSLR's because that's where the glass is. So long as that market exists, there is an incentive to produce consumer level DSLR's because selling upgrades to consumers is a major source of revenue. I mean, weather sealing a camera is about $1.00 worth of gaskets. A 100% FOV viewfinder is another $1.00. And a second dial is a third dollar. Selling cameras without those feature means people miss shots because it might rain and screw up shots because they forgot to set the aperture/shutter/sensitivity and wind up with great photos except for the random 'compositional noise' creeping in from the frame edges.
Removing the mirror and pentaprism makes the mirrorless camera smaller and cheaper.
The digital viewfinder shows you exactly what the sensor is seeing, so you have a better idea of what the final image will look like.
They focus better during video.
I think there are also some technical details on how the auto focus points work better mirrorless and the depth of field in the viewfinder is more accurate. I think DSLRs hold the apature wide open when you look through the view finder, then stop it down when you take the photo -- this keeps the view finder bright but effects the depth of field. Not 100% sure on this though.
But a SLR or DSLR with a bright 100% view finder is a thing of beauty. So big and crisp and clear.
The three main things holding mirrorless back (slow evf, slower af and battery life) will all improve drastically over the next few years. DSLRs won't be overtaken in those areas for a while, but mirrorless is the future in my opinion.
So looking at this over a 5-10 year period and not just about today's specs, what's to keep a manufacturer like Canon or Nikon from building a mirrorless body that continues to work with all of their existing gear? If I were them and that's where I thought the market was going, that's what I'd do.
They already do - Canon EOM-M and Nikon J(?). They have a different native lens mount but adapters are available for legacy glass. I think they reviewed poorly against more dedicated mirrorless manufacturers.
Reminds me of the Porsche Boxster/Cayman. Mid-engined cars is a fundamentally better design than the rear engined 911 but the company culture and legacy requires that the best performing Porsche models are the 911s.
I'd love to see Canon/Nikon build a 918 equivalent, just go all out building a mirrorless using their best tech. Unfortunately they are ceding the ground to Sony/Fuji/Olympus...
When that happens, I'll buy one. There are some difficulties with the distance between the sensor and lens (flange distance) being so different between DSLR and mirrorless but surely there will be a sensible solution at some point.
>> what's to keep a manufacturer like Canon or Nikon from building a mirrorless body that continues to work with all of their existing gear?
Old school management thinking. The most common speculation as to why Canon and Nikon are behind in mirrorless is that they're afraid of cannibalizing their DSLR product lines.
The bigger thing is that, if taking advantage of a mirrorless format requires a new lens form factor, that means that Canon and Nikon effectively eliminate a huge lock-in to their system.
As soon as you've said you have to start over again (Maybe with some kludgy options for existing high end telephoto glass) you've basically eliminated whatever advantage you may have as an incumbent.
It's as if Microsoft introduced a great new operating system that couldn't run any existing applications. (This has been done in various ways like Apple with Intel but it's hugely painful.)
I suspect that Canon and Nikon are not certain that is where the market is heading. This may be because the camera market is more like an oil tanker than a Jetski. APS [1], Disc [2], and the 126 of my first camera [3] suggest that camera designs come and go.
I suspect you've never looked through one of the good modern EVFs. They aren't slow any more, and they're immensely more accurate than what you see through glass.
I've read some great reviews of mirrorless cameras, but they always seemed a bit fan-boyish -- and I don't want to invest in gear simply because it's something all the cool kids are doing.
All I care about is the art, and I understand that there's always going to be trade-offs. Quite frankly, the main attraction to me right now with mirrorless cameras is the incredibly high ISO I'm seeing. But since photography is a long-term hobby, and since I don't go out and buy the new stuff simply because it's the new stuff, I figured the DSLR guys will be along in a few years with just as good sensitivity only it'll work with all of my other stuff, right?
I have no problem shooting with a cell phone if I think I've got a good shot. The problem is when I gear up and specifically go out to try and get something. At that point, what does mirrorless really get me? (assuming the DSLR bodies catch up over the next few years) I'm already hauling stuff. I'm thinking the mirror itself is a nit either way at that point.
Like I said, I need to keep an eye on this. The field is evolving quickly.
One of the potential art side technical differences is vibration from mirror slap. Though many DSLR's offer mirror lockup or live view shooting, mirrorless systems do eliminate it completely from the process.
I don't think that's entire true, since both mirrorless and DSLR live-view still suffer from shutter slap unless you enable electronic first-curtain shooting, which may or may not degrade image quality a bit.
But... phone cameras' problem is you can't take a picture with just one hand (or it's really hard, or you'll drop the phone, or you'll miss the shot). I think that is the main reason while more pro photographers don't use phones (and not resolution, or zoom, or dials, etc.)
I'm not a pro but a serious enthusiast, and having to use both hands and no viewfinder to take a picture is a deal breaker for me.
I wonder if there's an opportunity to either make a lighter camera based on phone tech, but that can be operated with one hand, or to make a (serious, non gadget) accessory that let you take pictures with one hand, using your phone.
The models that come out of Canon or Nikon are really depressing, nothing is ever new. Fujis are much more interesting, but still quite ordinary. A lighter and flatter X100T would have been fantastic, but instead, the X100F is bigger and heavier. Go figure.
For a compact powerful mirrorless camera, look at the Olympus E-M10 MkII (its successor might be out later this year) or the Pen-F. They can be used pretty much one handed, and their body isn't much larger than an mobile phone (though thicker, and of course much more so with a lens attached).
I just bought a Panasonic Lumix G80 [0], my first new camera (other than iPhones) in almost ten years.
The first thing that struck me is how much more "technical" it all is nowadays -- many, many options are available, and it's going to be a learning curve. I accept this because I want some things you can only get with "real" lenses and bigger sensors, but as a software guy it makes me think there's still a lot of room for us to improve the user experience of digital cameras.
Ideally I'd want the various iPhone photo apps (VSCO et al) to live inside my Lumix. As far as I know, nobody is even remotely close to offering that, and I wonder why not.
I think at some point it becomes artistic so there are lots of things to consider when taking a photo.
You can't just let the software do the work because how would you describe what kind of photo you want? Mine is extremely user-friendly though and there is a button that makes it Point and Shoot.
Besides, if you want simplicity, you can just buy a Point&Shoot camera and it will have a nice sensor. Something like Nikon Coolpix.
With a DSLR, you are effectively buying a manual transmission instead of automatic.
More cameras are great and all, but I'd be even more excited if we had more options for great, affordable, portable and resilient modifiers to use in the field.
At the end of the day I want the power to modify the light of any scene the way I see fit without having to hire a big crew and carry around dozens of boxes of gear. The shot will pretty much take itself once the right light is in place.
Super affordable speedlights with already built-in receivers were a great step in the right direction, we need more of that.
I took a lot of pictures with my iphones (I've switched to a n Android phone recently). Most pictures are good when being seen on phones (especially on a Retina Macbook :D), but it's almost impossible to print them on small media (4R , A4 papers).
I don't have any micro 4/3 camera. The last time I tried a Sony I thought it was a toy :D
i would say phone camera would be good enough for everything unless you need to shoot in low light and more importantly with zoom, digital zoom hit limits very fast
though personally i just gave up on zoom and shoot everything with mobile which is always with me instead of carrying heavy camera just to use rarely zoom and low light photos
> ...notably the Fuji XF-100 or Leica Q. These things are kind of expensive...
I would have preferred camera examples that cost less than $1,000. At $4,000+ for Leica that's much more than an average photography enthusiast would spend on camera "just for fun".
Since the author begins by describing medium format cameras as the most interesting, I think the prices are anchored to on the photography cheap-expensive scale, where a 'moderately priced' tripod head costs as much as an entry level DSLR which is a camera that professionals would have mortgaged the house to buy twenty five years ago.
I'll second this, although I'd recommend staying away from the X100. It had some issues with autofocus that were mostly corrected with firmware updates, but weren't completely addressed. The X100S and T are both excellent cameras.
Shooting with a prime (fixed focal length) lens will give you significantly better image quality at a lighter weight than using a zoom lens. I don't think you need much more than 16MP. That resolution is good enough for publishing in a top tier national magazine[1], and it'll be good enough for your computer screen.
In support of the claim that 16MP is enough, it is also instructive to recall that a full magazine page at 300 DPI is ~8.4 megapixels. So 16MP is technically just about good enough for a double-page spread.
That's around 300 PPI, which is way more than enough; most photographs don't consist of super-high-contrast aliased lines, and thus will typically look OK printed at considerably less than 300PPI; depending on context you could go as low as 100-200PPI. 300DPI is a bare minimum more because then the printer dots are bare visible; and of course you need many printer dots per pixel to be able to create smooth-looking gradients. It doesn't say as much about pixels.
Of course, if you're printing sub-8MP images on a full page, then you can count on all those pixels being important, so any pixel-level defects that are usually hidden by their tiny size will become visible (hot pixels, noise, that kind of thing)
With a Bayer sensor [1], multiple pixels are interpolated to determine the color and luminance of each output pixel...a typical digital camera can not capture two adjacent red pixels. On the other hand, print inks will tend to bleed and so it's hard to pixel peep a magazine image.
one thing to mention though is that the dedicated camera is shrinking on the whole which will limit investment in bigger and better sensors. Therefore mobile phones get a lot more focus.
> only forgot to mention that pictures are going the way of books and newspapers.
> the web today is video first.
[citation needed]
Most of what I see (twitter, facebook, instagram, etc) is still photos, followed by GIF-style short video loops (at low resolution).
Video is growing but there are a lot of occasions where people are consuming content and can't watch video (you don't want to blast audio in the queue at the supermarket)
Guilty as charged on being a techie/programmer, and I love DPReview, but I don't encounter general-overview articles much, and I felt like writing one, and it's my blog so nobody can stop me, haha.
I loved the article! It's a great mix of details and big picture stuff. I'm sure it's nothing new for enthusiasts, but it's always a delight to get information in this "goldilocks zone". I encourage anyone to write and post more articles like this!
fair enough.. it is actually a good overview of the different format options available, i guess my comment was more directed generally than this post specifically.
or perhaps i am rembering the hype that surfaced around ken rockwell a number of years ago and projecting from that
Well, you should mistrust any photo gear recommendations that don't start with a question asking you what you are trying to accomplish (photographically speaking) in the first place.
You could buy a camera that's generally accepted by reviewers as one of the best cameras, but it still may not be right for you.
As with most things technical, I find that camera people fall into a bunch of different biased groups, and that tends to shade their recommendations.
Another factor is focal range. With a bigger sensor it's easier to have a wide field of view, again an advantage dedicated cameras have.
I disagree about APS-C and FF being the winners. I think FF has peaked, the traditional advantages of FF are compensated for in smaller formats by better sensor silicon (getting to better low light sensitivity for a given pixel size) and optics (F1.8, F1.4 and even F1.2 lenses). FF still has its place with pro photographers but for amateurs the cost, size and weight (not just the camera - that primary factor here are the lenses, which become very big and very expensive as you climb up the sensor size) make it impractical.
I think FF will rule for pro photographers and MFT, which is smaller than APS-C, will rule the amateur market. MFT cameras are pushing the definition of pocketable already, but they can be carried along with a small lens and be with you everywhere. I can probably fit my PEN-F with a 14mm Lumix pancake lens in my jacket pocket without too much hassle - and as the old saying goes, "the best camera is the one you have with you".