Originally posted by troika In a lot of ways, it's good innovation. You don't really even need a shutter anymore, that's a holdover from film. You can simply tell the sensor when to blink on and off and for what duration. In theory, the lack of mirror saves space, but I think that advantage is quickly lost when you start mounting lenses to it.
The big disadvantages to me are two of the things that have me in Pentax. You can't have an optical viewfinder without a mirror. You either frame and focus in live view, like you did with the K-01 and you do with the Q or you have an electronic viewfinder, which makes the camera bigger again, but it's essentially a screen inside an eyepiece. I had a fuji camera years ago with one and hated it. They've gotten better, but still don't feel like home to me.
The other disadvantage is that Sony had no legacy glass to dis-infranchise, so everyone buying into it was buying into a new system anyway. Nikon and Canon's offerings introduced a new lens mount for that system that isn't compatible with their dSLR cousins. To my knowledge the Pentax K-01 is the only mirrorless that was at least ASP-C in sensor size that worked with the dSLR lens mount. That made it a compelling travel camera for people with larger, heavier Pentax dSLRs, but it was criticized for being big and ugly, by comparison and didn't do well enough to make more than one version of.
I think the KP is there to scratch that itch now. A K1 and a KP share the same lenses, but exist in different form factors and at different price points...and they both have really good optical view finders.
I can fully agree with troika above.
The things that made me *not* buy a mirrorless System when I decided to go from Superzoom Bridge to interchangable DSLR-style were:
- Lack of available lenses for the applications I was interested in
- Lack of features taking full advantage of the new technology
- Price
The later point will become obsolete as new models are released and previous series bodies come available.
Why not an electronic viewfinder? Yes, with my 300mm f/4 and a x2 adapter mounted I can see things with my dark-accustomed eyes that I can't take a photo off (I had to go fully open aperture and ISO 50k to begin to visualize what I could see with my eyes through the viewfinder). Why would I need to see things, I can't take a photo of? Electronic Viewfinder will do fine, most of the time I only use the viewfinder anyway if it's too bright to actually see well on the screen or when I need full auto-focus capabilities. To confirm focus, LV is so much nicer: Outlines of what is in focus, x16 digital ZOOM to confirm focus on Stars, etc. all that you could have in an electronic View Finder.
Why the mirror? I only see disadvantages. It's slower than electronic shutter. Taking a nice Macro with foucs-stacking and HDR exposure the camera goes tack-tack-tack, then I have to manually change focus on my KP, then tack-tack-tack again introducing vibrations. Yes, there is the mirror pre-release, but again: Why a mirror if I need to activate a work-around to get rid of it?
I would like an updated K3 (or a software update for my KP) to allow focus-stacking, but a mirrorless version (still using the K-Mount Lense environment) would be so grand. If the body size would not get reduced (I don't mind my KPs size), we could have an electronic viewfinder, a decent flash, GPS, ... there is so much room taken up by that prism and mirror...
Can anyone tell my why the people mentioned above migrated back to a loud, vibrating mirror thing? Was it actually the camera handling and missing a mirror???