What's the appeal of new mirrorless cameras?

[Benjamin Marks]

Adapters, and the defeat the demon of focus shift.

 

[peterm1]

No advantages for the buyer that I can see. The manufacturer's motivation is clear to me. They are cheaper to produce than cameras with mirror boxes, thus rendering a higher profit. And DSLRs were getting so good, not enough people were buying new ones.

I am not even sure that this is the real motive, it is even more fundamental than that.

The simple equation is that manufacturers must keep those production lines rolling to keep money coming in the door otherwise those whole thing stops. You cannot do that by recycling essentially the same products. Just as we have to keep breathing every moment of every day they have to have money flowing in constantly or the whole system falters and dies.

And its the overhead costs too - keeping those big organisations alive costs billions each year in marketing, R and D, compliance with local regulations, lawyers, accountants, you name it. And without that infrastructure in place and funded the wheels fall off too.

The market gets saturated quickly and when it does people stop buying so that means that every one of the firms in this market have to keep innovating and convincing people that they MUST have the new gadget. So they keep inventing them.

Are there advantages for the user. Kind of - certainly over longer time periods. One might question the benefits of specific innovations in the short term but put it this way - over longer time periods, without this system and the competition that drives it, we would all be still using fully mechanical film cameras with a 50mm lens. Lots of folks here at RFF might be happy with that (I even think I kind of would be) but then I would be doing a lot less photography (certainly a lot less photographic experimentation given I never had a darkroom) just as I was back in the film days.

 

[ptpdprinter]

None of this is new. It is the same as when they were making film cameras.

 

[FrozenInTime]

Live histogram and ability to see lens flare is what draws me to mirror-less over a rangefinder on many occasions.

But it’s not just Canon and Nikon suffering from full frame bloat; look at the size of the Leica SL and it’s lenses.

The Leica CL and TL2 seem to have the right balance :
Work very well with M lenses and the native AF lenses are a lot smaller than full frame equivalents. APS-C crop is not such a hang up as I thought.

 

[Ko.Fe.]

I'm good with 5DMKII and few L lenses for now.

With 24-105 f4 L:

Those lenses works on compact and on advanced EOS film bodies, and on digital Rebel I also have.
And I have Canon RF. And I have Canon 16MP tiny P&S with optical VF!.

R...

https://www.apotelyt.com/compare-camera/canon-6d-vs-canon-r



No significant difference in size and weight. No significant difference in lenses size and weight. No IBIS at both.
I don't care for manual focus lenses. Sorry, but it is kind of looser thing, to use non af lenses on af bodies.
Couldn't care less about EVF.
Battery capacity is terrible as usual for this EVF things.

If I ever get something else from Canon it is going to be 6D instead of MKII.

 

[dxq.canada]

Something that's been baffling me a bit lately is the appeal of the new mirrorless cameras from Canon and Nikon.

Because they are "new".

 

[BillBingham2]

For Nikon it's the start of the next great line of camera and lenses.

B2 (;->

 

[colker]

because they are better. DSLRs are too big, too heavy, too noisy and lenses are proprietary.
You may prefer DSLR, you may prefer a pinhole, you may not care ... but new cameras are shooting at extremely low light w/ less bulk, less noise and that´s remarkable. DEny all you want but time moved on.

 

[Godfrey]

The appeal of mirrorless cameras has nothing to do with size, at least for me.

The appeal is less mechanical complication, quieter and hopefully more reliable operation operation for some purposes, a better viewfinder for many purposes, and more versatile lens options ... both in what you can use on them via adaptation in way of existing lenses, and in what new lens designs can be conceived for digital sensor cameras without a swinging mirror in the optical path and with a very short mount registration.

There's way too much hoopla associated with the "light and compact" notions, IMO. They're really beside the point as far as I'm concerned. I like light and compact but only to a useful point. I have largish hands and need something that offers a good bit of gripping surface and places to rest my fingers...

G

Something that's been baffling me a bit lately is the appeal of the new mirrorless cameras from Canon and Nikon.

I had thought that the appeal of mirrorless cameras was that they could be made smaller and lighter than SLRs and loose the big prism bump. Also that you could make smaller and lighter lenses.

However the new Canon and Nikons don't seem to be any less large and bulky than a traditional DSLR and the lenses are simarly larger.

So what are the advantages of it, from a consumer standpoint? I can't imagine that mirror blackout is that big of any issue for anybody really.

 

[Huss]

It's interesting to read the comments from some claiming it is just a marketing gimmick, and buyers are essentially sheep.
With my mirrorless camera I do not have to worry about focus shift, focus optimization, if my rf has drifted, or if my mirror or focus screen is slightly out of plane.

These are all very real things. Things that are immediately noticeable in a final image.

Or you can keep pretending nothing has actually changed since 1952.

 

[KM-25]

because they are better. DSLRs are too big, too heavy, too noisy and lenses are proprietary.
You may prefer DSLR, you may prefer a pinhole, you may not care ... but new cameras are shooting at extremely low light w/ less bulk, less noise and that´s remarkable. DEny all you want but time moved on.

How nice of you to just barf your limited opinion upon everyone and claim in broad terms that “Time moved on” after buying a Leica M3.

 

[Contarama]

It's all about that big throat size and the laws of physics and the clinical like results modern lens design seems to favor. At the least it is something new I guess. Real Estate shooters would probably love that distortion free fast wa I guess

 

[mcfingon]

I'm looking forward to a very long and reliable shutter life from my Sony A7S. I have used the silent electronic shutter since October 2014 and not the mechanical shutter. So, unless the electrons get fatigued and start moving at different speeds, it should not ever need adjusting...
John Mc

 

[nickthetasmaniac]

I had thought that the appeal of mirrorless cameras was that they could be made smaller and lighter than SLRs and loose the big prism bump. Also that you could make smaller and lighter lenses.

One of the potential benefits of mirrorless is that it can be made smaller and/or lighter, particularly the lenses, but this isn't the only benefit, and mirrorless doesn't necessarily need to be smaller to still have value.

At a basic design level, the benefit of mirrorless is that it allows camera designers to remove a large and complex mechanical component (and it's associated design limitations). That's not to say I don't see a place for optical finders (I shoot a lot of my work on a Pentax MX and Leica M2), but removing that mechanism opens up a lot of oppotunities.

In practice, I shoot a lot of low-level macro, and the ability to use an articulated rear screen and focus magnification (on a camera designed from the group up for live view) is a godsend.

 

[CMur12]

Though it has been said in other words already, no mirror box means no or reduced need for retrofocus lens designs. This really opens up potential for optical technology.


- Murray

 

[Keith]

Bugger all if you don't have any money! 😛😛😛

 

[Sumarongi]

Though it has been said in other words already, no mirror box means no or reduced need for retrofocus lens designs. This really opens up potential for optical technology.

No, dear Murray,
exactly the opposite is true! Have a look how much more complicated the most recent 1.8/50mm lens formulas for the new full-frame MILCs are —— they're Retrofocus! Hence the increased size, weight and bulk.
And since the most recent Nikon and Canon full-frame MILC bodies are so extremely shallow, each and every lens has additional bulk!

 

[nickthetasmaniac]

Have a look how much more complicated the most recent 1.8/50mm lens formulas for the new full-frame MILCs are...

Have a look at how much more complicated all the new 50mm lens formulas are (both mirrorless and dslr)...

 

[Phil_F_NM]

I have always wondered why Canon never implemented a digital version of the EOS 1nRS with that pellicle mirror. That was one of the most amazing cameras I've ever owned and that the world has ever seen. A viewing system which would be perfect for digital. Anyway, I digress.
I got to play with a new mirrorless NIkon and it was surprisingly light and almost small. I liken the feeling as similar to being used to a new pro series Nikon DSLR like the D3 then going and handling an F4s. The F4 used to seem big but it is pretty svelte compared to one of the pro DSLRs.

Phil Forrest

 

[CMur12]

No, dear Murray,
exactly the opposite is true! Have a look how much more complicated the most recent 1.8/50mm lens formulas for the new full-frame MILCs are —— they're Retrofocus! Hence the increased size, weight and bulk.
And since the most recent Nikon and Canon full-frame MILC bodies are so extremely shallow, each and every lens has additional bulk!

I don't think this is true.


Recent complex lens designs by Sigma Art, Canon, and such seem to follow the path of the super-complex, super-corrected Zeiss Otus lenses, which were designed for SLRs.


Early superwide/wide angle lenses for SLRs extended into the mirror box and required the mirror to be locked up. It took retrofocus designs to move the whole lens further from the shutter. This hadn't been an issue with RF cameras, with their shorter shutter-to-flange distance. As another example, I read than Minolta made the normal lens for their original SR-T 101 in the 58mm focal length (rather than 50mm) because they could clear the mirror without resorting to a retrofocus formulation.


I've read elsewhere that the shorter shutter-to-flange distance in mirrorless cameras allows lens designers to produce lenses better matched to the performance characteristics of digital sensors. I would be curious to know more about this, myself.


- Murray