Jorgen Udvang
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 p.7 #4 · 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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As a mirrorless user for 10 years, there's one factor that makes me want to go back to DSLR as much as possible: with an EVF, there's a constant, high frequency flicker, and it makes my eye "tired". It's similar to when I spend too much time watching a computer screen. It's not visible to me as such, but I'm sure my eye and my brain sense it.
Then there's the subjective, more "natural" feeling to the OVF. It's sometimes convenient that everything is bright and shiny in the EVF, but the image that I'm trying to convey isn't always bright and shiny. I'm quite sure that the visual magnification of colours and luminance influences how I see and compose my images.
DSLR cameras are not perfect, but they give me a more natural experience and they consume much less energy. As for the flicker of the mirror going up and down, it has never bothered me, and since it's something that I can see and relate to, I'm sure it's less problematic than the much faster flicker of the viewfinder LCD.
This will of course not change the development in the market. Mirrorless is new, and heavily marketed. Notice the very low-key promotion at the launch of the D780. No famous phototgraphers telling us about their wonderful experiences at exotic locations with this camera, no stories about how changing to the D780 will make the world a better place, unlike with recent mirrorless launches.
There is a size difference between mirrorless and DSLR, but it's not anywhere as big as we are sometimes lead to believe. When you add all the batteries needed for the mirrorless camera, there's little advantage from a size/weight point of view. A Z6 needs 6 batteries for the same number of exposures as the D780 can do with one. That's around half a kilo or one pound, not to speak about the cost and the time it takes to charge them.
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