# Mirrorless building momentum?



## mcasan (Jun 1, 2017)

Oh the times they are a changing....

Mirrorless system camera sales finally booming? +90% in sales compared to April 2016! – 43 Rumors


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## clee01l (Jun 1, 2017)

The only thing keeping me in  a DSLR is compatibility of my Nikon lens collection and full frame 36mp+ capability.


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## PhilBurton (Jun 1, 2017)

clee01l said:


> The only thing keeping me in  a DSLR is compatibility of my Nikon lens collection and full frame 36mp+ capability.


Cletus,

You and me both.  But we shouldn't understimate the "muscle memory" that I have because I have been using Nikon gear for many years now.  Going from the F2 and N90S to the D3 wasn't that much of a change (aside from the obvious).  I still use some of my old manual focus lenses on my D3.

Our big decision point may occur if/when Nikon releases a full frame prosumer mirrrorless body.

Phil


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## clee01l (Jun 1, 2017)

PhilBurton said:


> Our big decision point may occur if/when Nikon releases a full frame prosumer mirrrorless body.


I Am anxiously awaiting that decision point.


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## mcasan (Jun 2, 2017)

It is a tough decision to abandon the DSLR ship.   I remember walking into a local camera store a couple of years back.   One of the personnel was "Mr. Nikon".    He had just sold off everything to go Fuji and move his extensive photo library to C1P.   He was primarily a landscape and still-life shooter and he through a Fuji would serve him well.    BTW, that camera store went out of business in February after being around for something like 50 years.


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## Tony Jay (Jun 2, 2017)

I use mirrorless for landscape and general shooting (Sony A7R II), but still very much favour a DSLR for birds/wildlife/action shooting (Canon 5D III, IDX II) notwithstanding the newly released Sony A9.
At some point Sony will release some decent super-telephoto lenses for the FE mount but it remains to be seen how affordable they will be.

Mirrorless has advanced in leaps and bounds (with Sony at least) but it is still an emerging technology.
Good news is that there are still plenty of improvements to come.
The bad news is that the landscape (pun intended) is shifting a lot and prices are high.

In the current economic climate for photographic gear it remains to be seen whether Nikon can survive in its current configuration, but hopefully the aggressive approach of Sony in developing and marketing its mirrorless options will prompt other makers, including Canon, to up their game.

We will wait and see!

Tony Jay


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## Ian.B (Jun 2, 2017)

I have never regretted going to the smaller mirror less cameras and I now have the thought that mirrorless would be the better training camera for early learners --- having the histogram active in the viewfinder makes it so easy to get it right exposure wise with one click . I seldom look an image on the camera screen.

Certainly not  missing or ever missed the ff canon (5D2). The Oly em1 would be best camera I have used while the Lumix Fz300 would be the most versatile camera I have ever used


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## Johan Elzenga (Jun 2, 2017)

I'm with Tony. Electronic viewfinders are great for landscape photography, but they suck for wildlife. I sometimes have to wait for more than an hour to get that wildlife shot. If the viewfinder goes black to save power, I'll probably miss the shot when the moment is finally there. If I leave the viewfinder on, I may also miss it, because the batteries are dead by the time the action takes place.


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## davidedric (Jun 2, 2017)

There still seems to be a perception, in beginner's, that dslr's are the only "real" cameras.  I'm judging this from the many posts in other forums that are headed something like "buying my first dslr".  These seem to be largely from posters in the USA, but that may be because I read English language forums.  I think this will shift, though who knows how rapidly.

Without debating the merits of the two teams technologies, it seems to me that "mirrorless" can span a very wide set of needs, leaving high speed needs such as sports where dslr's keep the advantage.

I can't see how dslr's can ever gain market share from mirrorless, and as new photograhers choose their systems their decline looks inevitable.  I see lots switching from dslr systems to mirrorless, but not so many going the other way.

Dave


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## Tony Jay (Jun 2, 2017)

JohanElzenga said:


> I'm with Tony. Electronic viewfinders are great for landscape photography, but they suck for wildlife. I sometimes have to wait for more than an hour to get that wildlife shot. If the viewfinder goes black to save power, I'll probably miss the shot when the moment is finally there. If I leave the viewfinder on, I may also miss it, because the batteries are dead by the time the action takes place.


Johan

The new Sony A9 does not blackout when shooting.
The autofocus system is apparently better than the Canon 1Dx mk II.
It can also shoot a ridiculous 20 frames/second.
It also has a buffer that allows a ridiculous number of shots with no pauses (can't remember the exact number).

However...
Currently, apart from a 100-400 f4.5-6.3 zoom Sony does not have any super-telephoto lenses for the FE mount.
Apparently they are coming, they will probably be very good quality, but probably very expensive (at least 50% more expensive than comparable Canon lenses).

Tony Jay


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## Johan Elzenga (Jun 2, 2017)

I'm not talking about blackout when shooting. I'm talking about the camera (and so the display) going to sleep if I need to wait an hour or so before the anticipated action takes place. A DSLR will also go to sleep in that situation, but the viewfinder will keep working. So I can still look through that 600mm lens, ready to press the shutter release when something happens. My DSLR also wakes up instantaneously if I do that. 

An electronic viewfinder will be black when the camera goes to sleep, so I can't look through the lens while waiting. And it needs some time to wake up. I can obviously turn off sleep to stop the display from turning itself off, but that will drain the battery (which already has much less capacity than the battery of my EOS-1D X). So no, despite its impressive specs, I don't see myself shooting wildlife with a Sony A9.


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## Johan Elzenga (Jun 2, 2017)

Another situation where a DSLR is vastly superior over an EVF camera: Astrophotograhy. Have you ever tried to shoot the milky way with an EVF?...


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## Conrad Chavez (Jun 2, 2017)

JohanElzenga said:


> Another situation where a DSLR is vastly superior over an EVF camera: Astrophotograhy. Have you ever tried to shoot the milky way with an EVF?...


Yes...last weekend!






Would an OVF have been easier? Sure, in several ways. But it wasn't a deal breaker. With either my mirrorless or DSLR, I still have to estimate the composition and adjust it after a test exposure or two. Maybe it's because I don't have an ideal SLR for astrophotography either (an older APS-C), but I can't easily see the Milky Way through an EVF or OVF.

I intentionally used the mirrorless camera that night to see how well it would do, not to claim that it's just as good as a DSLR. Obviously, for serious astrophotography you do want a full frame low noise sensor, not what I brought. Everybody around me that night had Canons and Nikons, of course...but I'm happy with what I got, and I'd do it again.

The need to power a mirrorless camera's EVF combined with the lower battery life of the smaller batteries is a disadvantage, especially in cold temperatures. For a Milky Way time lapse, even with the EVF off, I replaced the camera battery with a power coupler connected to a large USB battery pack to ensure that there was power for the full duration of the time lapse. The attached frame is one of the raw files from the time lapse.

In general, I'm sticking with mirrorless since it's better for most of what I shoot, which is not astrophotography. The small mirrorless system is so much easier to manage when traveling, and now I know I can get basic astrophotography out of it. But I haven't let go of my DSLR yet.


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## Johan Elzenga (Jun 2, 2017)

To me is is a deal breaker. With my full frame DSLR and a fast lens (f/2.8) I can see exactly what I'm doing. With my Sony A7R I'm shooting completely blind, because the noise in the viewfinder is greater than the entire milky way.


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## johnbeardy (Jun 3, 2017)

Astrophotograhy is only one form of low light photography. In others, the EVF is already superior when you brighten the EVF to assist your composition, or operate silently.



davidedric said:


> it seems to me that "mirrorless" can span a very wide set of needs, leaving high speed needs such as sports where dslr's keep the advantage.



You might question whether DSLRs will retain any advantage in "high speed" fields, Dave. In the two measures of speed, focussing and frame rate, reports of Sony's new A9 indicate focussing speed competitive with the top end Canons and Nikons while its 20fps compares with 12fps on those DSLRs. High frame rate is not necessarily a good thing - when I've let my Fuji XT2 loose at 15fps, I've then had to spend ages choosing which almost-identical frames are worth keeping.


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