[Breakfastographer]

Not much that's special about mirrorless:

1. Short back focal flange
2. No TTL OVF
3. No dedicated meter
4. No dedicated PDAF unit

So, really, it's short back focal flange bought at the expense of omitting a whole bunch of other nice-to-haves.

I sometimes see people on forums write about "mirrorless tech". They just mean live view.

[reh321]

Not much that's special about mirrorless:

1. Short back focal flange
2. No TTL OVF
3. No dedicated meter
4. No dedicated PDAF unit

So, really, it's short back focal flange bought at the expense of omitting a whole bunch of other nice-to-haves.

I sometimes see people on forums write about "mirrorless tech". They just mean live view.

Perhaps you can view LV in sunlight. I cannot, so MILC would gain various features for me at the cost of others.

[TwoUptons]

A DSLR can operate in mirrorless mode with all the potential frame-rate, video, sensor-wide dense AF points, etc. advantages of full-time sensor operation, processing, and display.

A mirrorless camera cannot be operated in OVF mode. Sorry, but MILCs are downgraded DSLRs with surgically diminished functionality.

At least that's how I see it.

A DSLR could do some of the fancy tricks "just like a mirrorless", with the AF games and such. As we all know, once the mirror is up, a SLR is mirrorless anyway...

But they probably won't, as once you implement all that on-sensor stuff at a top-of-the-line form, adding a mirror, optical viewfinder, separate focusing system, and separate meter is expensive and way behind on the law of diminishing returns.
I also don't think anyone has yet mastered the art of blending an optical viewfinder with an electronic one in a seamless fashion, and until that happens, there will always be a moment of weirdness when the changeover happens...

But while we'll probably never reach feature parity on all of those features the mirrorless folks go on about, for the time being, there are still plenty of DSLRs, and those of us who like that sort of thing can keep on using them...

-Eric

[ecostigny]

I suspect that mirrorless is hot as much because of its potential--you're not hamstrung by the limitations of legacy hardware--as what it has achieved now. Nikon's promoting the dual processors in its latest iterations of its Z6 and Z7 bodies, but the real excitement will come when some smartphone-type functionality--such as for image processing, connectivity, etc.--makes it into dedicated camera bodies (though one wonders what impact such extra computing would have on camera thermals and battery life).

[automorphism]

Meh, I am not a fan of these clickbait articles. Mirrorless and DSLR just have different applications and different appeal. For example, I prefer a DSLR for wildlife and birds, but I prefer mirrorless for shooting video, macro, and manual focus. In other more general arenas, I think both work pretty well. But then just writing that wouldn't get fstoppers more ad revenue.

[BigMackCam]

Meh, I am not a fan of these clickbait articles. Mirrorless and DSLR just have different applications and different appeal. For example, I prefer a DSLR for wildlife and birds, but I prefer mirrorless for shooting video, macro, and manual focus. In other more general arenas, I think both work pretty well. But then just writing that wouldn't get fstoppers more ad revenue.

Ah... a voice of sanity. I couldn't agree more!

Personally, I like DSLR for general shooting with AF lenses, and mirrorless for manual focus and low light (I can, of course, use either for any use case if required)... plus, I shoot an A-mount SLT camera just because I like using it and have some awesome glass for it. It's all good

[leekil]

What does he mean by "The almost-standard five stops of in-body image stabilization is awesome for doing all kinds of things, such as shooting in low-light conditions and shooting handheld video with smooth, dolly-like tracking. But are they the "holy grail" that many people appear to be purporting?"

Do the Nikon mirrorless cameras ahve in-body stabilization? Or is he talking about Sony? (Or maybe Pentax? &#128568

[dcpropilot]

Well, it is rather refreshing to see an article that isn't all about DSLRs being dead.

Ah... a voice of sanity. I couldn't agree more!

Personally, I like DSLR for general shooting with AF lenses, and mirrorless for manual focus and low light (I can, of course, use either for any use case if required)... plus, I shoot an A-mount SLT camera just because I like using it and have some awesome glass for it. It's all good

[KiloHotelphoto]

I just sold my two dslr's today and got a second mirrorless, I'll miss a few things about the dslr's but for my wildlife shooting the advantages of the mirrorless are worth it.

I never had any interest in mirrorless until September and I started looking into them. I can understand why some people say they will never go back to a dslr now and I can also understand why some people don't like them.

[BigMackCam]

Well, it is rather refreshing to see an article that isn't all about DSLRs being dead.

Agreed, it certainly is... but, you know, those DSLR-is-dead articles aren't worth the bandwidth used to read them. Most of the authors are just regular folks with a bunch of very personal and subjective opinions, and no more or less credibility than half the screwball-types posting in forums to generate a reaction.

There are photographers who still actively shoot rangefinder and SLR film cameras that are 50+ years old. Even if companies eventually stop making DSLRs, they won't die until we stop shooting them. I don't know about you, but I've no intention of doing so any time soon

[officiousbystander]

If an EVF is showing you an image with exposure compensated by camera settings then you're already one step removed from reality. As cheesy as this video is, there's an element of truth to it:

You Tube

You Tube

[DWS1]

A camera either fills your wants and needs, or it doesn't. It doesn't really matter what kind of camera it is as long as it does what you want.

[kokol]

For what it's worth, I shoot both with a K-5IIs and an A6000, which I bought for my underwater photography needs (or rather, wants!).

I really really wanted to like the A6000, but at the end of the day, shooting with it is just a mediocre experience. The menus are incredibly frustrating to use, the EVF is a disappointment, the compactness is offset by the need to have a decent lens (the compact kit lens 16-50 is awful. Meanwhile, the 90mm macro is truly outstanding, but then the whole setup becomes awkward to use), ergonomics are far off from Pentax, and the sensor isn't as good as the K-5IIs despite both cameras having the same rating on DXOMark. I hear that Fujifilm is making great cameras that are fun to use. The A6000 certainly isn't one.

It is difficult to communicate on the shooting experience, which is what Pentax is trying to do, but I wholeheartedly support Pentax's approach and will buy a K-3 III as soon as available.

Other than that the article is rather poor: overheating is not a real problem, a new lens collection is needed for any new system anyway, and I wouldn't want to edit my pictures on the camera. The EVF remains as the only valid point.

[ramseybuckeye]

For what it's worth, I shoot both with a K-5IIs and an A6000, which I bought for my underwater photography needs (or rather, wants!).

I really really wanted to like the A6000, but at the end of the day, shooting with it is just a mediocre experience. The menus are incredibly frustrating to use, the EVF is a disappointment, the compactness is offset by the need to have a decent lens (the compact kit lens 16-50 is awful. Meanwhile, the 90mm macro is truly outstanding, but then the whole setup becomes awkward to use), ergonomics are far off from Pentax, and the sensor isn't as good as the K-5IIs despite both cameras having the same rating on DXOMark. I hear that Fujifilm is making great cameras that are fun to use. The A6000 certainly isn't one.

It is difficult to communicate on the shooting experience, which is what Pentax is trying to do, but I wholeheartedly support Pentax's approach and will buy a K-3 III as soon as available.

Other than that the article is rather poor: overheating is not a real problem, a new lens collection is needed for any new system anyway, and I wouldn't want to edit my pictures on the camera. The EVF remains as the only valid point.

I did have an a6000 for a couple of years, I was shooting K-50 and I acquired a KP about a year after getting the a6000. The a6000 image quality was comparable to the K-50 even though it was 24mp vs 16mp. I got it because of the fast autofocus and small size. But the autofocus speed wasn't really that much faster than most of the Pentax lenses on the K-50. I had four lenses with it, only two I would call decent, a 30 macro and 20/2.8. The Sony 20/2.8 was a nice lens and I liked it. a pancake that made the getup pocketable. It was hard tom use shooting at night because of the limited controls (one wheel). The real plus for the Sony was the burst speed, which was something like 12 frames per second, it was nice when shooting soccer or basketball. But it was not really an intuitive camera, and I just never really loved shooting with it. And really after the KP came along, I didn't use it much. If there would have been an autofocus telephoto that was affordable I may have kept it. But they were selling a slow 70-300 for around a $1000.

I was in a Best Buy a few days ago and noticed they are still selling that a6000 new, at about twice what it should be, still with that awful 16-50. I bought mine used and did not have that lens, but I did have a very poor 16mm prime. I don't mean to say that all mirrorless cameras are not as good as DSLRs, but you can get a bottom of the line camera sometimes and get a different experience that you might get from a higher model.

[luftfluss]

Shouldn't this be in the "General Photography" section, or something?