Steve Spencer
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 p.6 #11 · Hogan's article - The DSLR cash cow is alive for how long? | |
Sauseschritt wrote:
Ah the good old mirrorless vs SLR debate. I think I'm doing these since at least eight years by now ?
Well theres two actual advantages of mirrorless that, to me, are actually there, and are actually substantial enough to matter, and those are:
- Assuming the manufacturer manages to actually implement that, they can have autofocus that needs no calibration.
- Assuming the manufacturer manages to actually implement that, they can have excellent support for manual focus, with technologies such as magnification, focus peaking, digital split image, and digital micro prism (the later two are only available on Fujifilm).
Then you have the somewhat mixed bag of the OVF vs EVF discussion. EVFs have some advantages, sure, but they have many problems as well. One problem you cannot get rid of with EVF is their need for current. And for example a SLR can actually be manually focused with the camera switched off, unless the lens is focus by wire.
Other potential problems of EVFs include limited dynamic range, caused by the fact that EVFs are actually tiny monitors with an optics in front of them, thus the individual pixel is very small and cannot display much of a range of brightness, lag in low light (and actually all EVFs I've ever tried have it in good light, too), problems/flickering with artificial lighting, and dazzling the user by being too bright in low light.
Also, unlike what some people claim, a good EVF isnt cheap either. Some people claim mirrorless would be cheaper to build, but I cant find any practical example which actually shows that.
All in all I dont really care if its an OVF or an EVF.
Other advantages are mostly in the head of people, but arent substantial or not even real at all:
- Mirrorless aint smaller. Yes, if you compare a specialized APS-C mirrorless, like Fujifilm X, to a crop DSLR, then the mirrorless is smaller. However thats because the crop DSLR is a crop and not a full frame APS-C, so they have to waste a lot of space thats not necessary if it was actually an APS-C system. Also many mirrorless are more or less brutally optimized for small dimensions. The Sony FE mirrorless for example are smaller than Olympus and Panasonic Micro Four Thirds mirrorless. Thats one of the reasons why the Sonys are so uncomfortable to hold. Finally yes, mirrorless dont need a mirrorbox, however what you lose at the camera you gain back with telephoto lenses, which have to be larger.
- The advantage of mirrorless cameras in respect to wide angle lenses is much smaller than many people claim; in fact while in theory its there I cant see it actually be there in reality at all. Mirrorless wide angle lenses often have to be retrofocus, too, because otherwise you cannot support large apertures like f2 or f1.4 on a wide angle lens. Either way I have no trouble finding great SLR wide angle lenses that can, as far as I can see, easily compete with everything offered for mirrorlesss, when ignoring extremely expensive Leica lenses and ignoring medium format.
As a final note - a DSLR which would have an EVF next to the OVF, and would focus with the sensor itself instead of a separate sensor which needs calibration, could offer all the strengths of mirrorless. While Nikon would actually have the patents to do such a camera, it doesnt look like they're planning to do such a beast.
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I think you missed one other obvious difference between mirrorless and DSLR and that is with mirrorless you have much more flexibility in the length of the flange distance. You can pick a short flange distance like 16mm on the Nikon Z camera or you can make the flange distance as long as you like. We see that the major manufacturers have all gone with a short flange distance of 20mm or less. DLSR cannot have a shorter flange distance than about 42mm or so because there has to be room for the mirror to go up and down.
Are there advantages to this shorter flange distance? Well, one implication of this shorter flange distance is that the camera is thinner. If the flange distance has to be at least 42mm then the camera is going to be over 50mm thick. Whether you like it or not mirrorless cameras can be and often are thinner than DSLRs. A second implication of this shorter flange distance is that the rear element of a lens will be closer to the sensor. This allows flexibility in how especially wide angles can be designed, but this flexibility does not automatically mean the designs are better. I disagree with Sauseschritt and I think flexibility can lead to excellent smaller wide angle lenses that do not have DSLR equivalents, but it doesn't always lead to better wide angles because not all designers use the flexibility of the short flange distance well. When they do, however, we get some stunning lenses that are both small and excellent. Let me give a few examples.
First let's look at the Zeiss Loxia 21 f/2.8. This lens weighs less than 400g and is quite small in the hand, yet it has performance that is slightly superior to the very highly regard Zeiss C/Y and ZE/ZF/Milvus 21 f/2.8, which is much much bigger. I have had both lenses for a long time and the Loxia really does stand up to it predecessors and has just a tiny bit better performance, but what sets it apart is that it has that performance in a lens that is so much smaller (look at the front elements for example 52mm filter threads vs. 77 or 82 mm filter threads).
Second let's look at the Sony FE 24 f/1.4 GM. This lens weighs less than 500g, but is quite simply the best performing 24mm that has ever been made, IMO. It has a fast aperture. It has excellent bokeh. I has a flat field. It is very sharp. Just an excellent all around lens even if it isn't perfect and it accomplishes that in a very small size. Much the same could be said about the Voigtlander 21 f/1.4 which is just 560g and despite the very wide aperture is both small and excellent in performance.
I could go on, but I think if you want both excellent performance and small size in wide angle lenses then mirrorless provides the flexibility that comes with a short flange distance to make such lenses possible. Now not all lenses designed for mirrorless have taken appropriate advantage of this flexibility but enough have to see that the advantages clearly there.
Finally let me add one more advantage that comes with mirrorless that hasn't yet been implemented in a DSLR except in live view shooting and that is contrast detect AF. Contrast detect AF when there is time is simply much more accurate. It can't be used for all targets, but if you shoot static or close to static scenes it will give you much more accurate AF and it simply has never been implemented in a camera when the mirror is down and the optical view finder is in operation.
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