[ffking]

Therefore four major multinational corporations, with all their research resources, obstinately went ahead anyway and made major economic investments in a technology they knew from the beginning would be problematic if not outright unusable for, potentially, 80% of their prospective market.

Frankly, I can imagine exactly that scenario - and it wouldn't be unprecedented.When people are excited by possibilities, they tend to ignore downsides, and if corporations are aware of downsides, that's what they employ marketing pros for - to whip up the excitement over the positives enough for people to not consider the downsides.

[Rondec]

Clearly none of us knows what the future holds. What I see here is more people stating their wishes for the future based on personal preferences.

I have not used the most recent EVFs, but the ones I have tried in the past did bother my eyes, whereas I can use an OVF all day without any strain. But that's just me and maybe the A9 is at the place where it wouldn't bother me at all.

As far as the K mount going away, I think it unlikely. Even if Pentax does mirrorless again, I don't really see the point of losing the K mount and using and adapter for all of the current k mount lenses. Clearly that is the worst of both worlds -- almost no native lenses for the new mount and poor performance of old lenses because they are auto focusing, etc with an adapter.

[Kunzite]

I'm not sure if I'm reading this correctly, though it would appear that you've presented a circular argument. ie, the photographer who cannot send images during an event could only suffer if other photographers had such capabilities themselves. And so it's unlikely that this could ever work to justify the progression of film to digital.

Close, but no cigar.

We're talking about the early stages of digital photography here, when the equipment was limited in capabilities and outrageously expensive.
Yes, I'd say that one factor was the immediacy but your image of photographers ignoring digital because they're all using film so nobody is at a disadvantage is surprisingly naive. Of course, some photographers saw the advantage of digital - even in its infancy - and decided to go for it, to be the firsts. Others followed, to the point the slower film workflow become unacceptable.

With that said, I'd remind you that the progression from film to digital encompassed numerous advantages in much the same way EVF brings advantages over its optical counterparts. Such as; live-view, wysiwyg rendering, unrestricted overlay potential, interactive display content, focus peaking, exposure control, dynamic range control, WB control, image magnification and /or playback, and so-on and so-forth...

And let's not forget - its tears can cure cancer; too bad it never cries. Wait, that was Chuck Norris...
Once again, you're making this analogy because you can't build a case on the issue being discussed. EVF vs. OVF is not digital vs. film; the only connection is that a. EVF is possible with digital, and b. OVF is no longer mandatory with digital.

[Rondec]

The whole "what you see is what you get" argument is only true if you don't post process. As far as I can tell it is more "what you see is what the jpeg the camera produces will look similar too depending on the dynamic range of the EVF." As far as all of the other things that clutter up the display on EVFs, they aren't that helpful for the most part and distract from the actual shooting -- I would turn them off if I owned a camera with an EVF. The goal really is the image. End of story.

[biz-engineer]

"what you see is what you get"

What you see is not what you get... it depends on how the EVF parameters are tuned.
The only thing you can rely on is the histogram, which you can have overlayed on the EVF, same as using LV with a K1, the downside of histogram hiding part of the image for framing.

[Kunzite]

The whole "what you see is what you get" argument is only true if you don't post process. As far as I can tell it is more "what you see is what the jpeg the camera produces will look similar too depending on the dynamic range of the EVF." As far as all of the other things that clutter up the display on EVFs, they aren't that helpful for the most part and distract from the actual shooting -- I would turn them off if I owned a camera with an EVF. The goal really is the image. End of story.

It's not true in many other cases.
Let me introduce another variable: time. The EVF requires a more or less fixed image stream from the sensor, exposed at about 1/60-1/120 (it would fail to do so in low light). Now, imagine you're shooting:
- a long time exposure of a waterfall
- a short time exposure intended to freeze the water
Will you see those effects in the EVF?

WYSIWYG might be true if you're posting snaps of your lunch to Facebook.

[Rondec]

It's not true in many other cases.
Let me introduce another variable: time. The EVF requires a more or less fixed image stream from the sensor, exposed at about 1/60-1/120 (it would fail to do so in low light). Now, imagine you're shooting:
- a long time exposure of a waterfall
- a short time exposure intended to freeze the water
Will you see those effects in the EVF?

WYSIWYG might be true if you're posting snaps of your lunch to Facebook.

Sure. But it is one of the things that is posted widely with regard to benefit of EVF over OVF. If you have a sensor that captures 13 EVs of light and and EVF that can show half that, clearly you don't have exactly a what you see is what you get portrayal in your viewfinder.

The biggest thing I think EVF helps with is focus helps in tough situations or with manual focus lenses. But that is a small subset of what people actually use the viewfinder for, which is framing/composition.

[photoptimist]

Given that optical and electrical signals essentially travel at the same speed, I would have thought that zero lag was the result of the signal paths being identical in length, and there being no processing circuitry delay in the case of the EVF. Also given that the distances from the back of the lens to the entry to the eye are essentially the same, I don't see how the EVF signal could ever be faster than that of the OVF.



From the looks of the Sony A9's performance, it appears that DR is inversely proportional to processing speed.

Exactly! And the biggest and most unavoidable lag is the sensor waiting to collect enough light to form an image. With a MILC, the camera is essentially an eyeball stuck between the scene and the users eyeball.

Even if the Sony could make the read-out, processing, and display run at the speed of light and the distances from sensor to EVF were the same as in an OVF, there's still the lag in collecting enough light.


And the deeper issue is the commercial one: Why would Sony make a sensor and camera with worse battery life (extreme frame rates and processing speeds) and worse DR (hot sensor) just to please people that generally dislike MILC cameras because they create eyestrain and headaches? Instead, Sony will be optimizing their sensors and EVFs to make people who like EVFs like them even more.

Finally, there's a significant subset of the photography customers that actively dislike what EVFs do. All the whiz-bang features of the EVF which MILC lovers love are actually a turn-off to this group. There's even people turning their backs on both EVFs and OVFs and switching to range-finder viewers (which if you think that lower-cost technologies always beat higher cost ones, then you should believe that both EVFs and OVFs will lose to RF but that's just silly because people don't buy expensive cameras to save money).

The point: MILC may increase in marketshare but never dominate the entire photography market because it simply cannot be all things to all photographers.

[normhead]

It is obvious that the future is going in the direction of EVF - question is when.

It's not obvious to many of us. Especially since an optical viewfinder can allow one to witness contrast variations of 20,000:1, as far as I know digital hasn't exceeded about 400:1. One presents the real world, one presents a rendering of the real world.

[wildman]

What I see here is more people stating their wishes for the future based on personal preferences.

Which is the classic Adam Smith definition of a properly functioning market system.

BTW this is my own actual practical experience with EVF-Mirrorless for what it's worth...
https://www.pentaxforums.com/forums/173-general-photography/346399-optical-f...ml#post4004921

[Kunzite]

Not if it's about denying others any choice different than your personal preference.

What we're seeing on the "OMG DSLRs are dying, panic!" threads is rather similar to a company launching unfounded rumors about some competitor's demise.

[wildman]

Not if it's about denying others any choice different than your personal preference.

I find it a bit of a stretch that the mere expression of opinion necessarily denies others the ability to do the same.

[Kunzite]

I'm not talking about mere expression of opinions, but consistent spreading of FUD. When and where it happens, it's as I described.

[normhead]

Sony A9: is there still a future for DSLRs, and Pentax mirrorless suggestion

That title questions the existence of DSLRs in the future.
We don't see many "how long until people realize an EVF simply can't convey the amount of analogue information an OVF provides and the Mirrorless fad dies out?"
I don't see those types of threads anywhere. The existence of Mirrorless make absolutely no difference to my view of photography. I buy a point and shoot when I need one, that is mirrorless, I buy a DSLR when I need one, mostly because of the limitations of mirrorless. That isn't going to change.These folks running around stating DSLRs are going to die off because of an in many ways inferior technology are incomprehensible.

I don't like those skinny little useless tires they put on some cars either. It cost me $1000 in gravel so the step-son could get up my driveway in that ridiculous vehicle. All because he was following some stupid fad. He paid twice the money for a vehicle that couldn't do what my $11,000 brand new Echo could do. I don't see how mirrorless is different. It's lacking in ability in important areas, lots of flash and dash in areas of interest only to the hipsters.

[photoptimist]

The whole "what you see is what you get" argument is only true if you don't post process. As far as I can tell it is more "what you see is what the jpeg the camera produces will look similar too depending on the dynamic range of the EVF." As far as all of the other things that clutter up the display on EVFs, they aren't that helpful for the most part and distract from the actual shooting -- I would turn them off if I owned a camera with an EVF. The goal really is the image. End of story.

Exactly!

Moreover, "what you see is what you get" isn't even a very good property of a viewfinder except for double-checking the settings (i.e., chimping).

A better option is to have "what you see is the full range of photographic possibilities " which in many instances exceeds the DR of the sensor and EVF and in all instances exceeds the color gamut of the sensors and EVF.

That is, for some parts of the photographic process, it helps to be able to see MORE than the sensor can see which makes EVFs inferior for the job. (Interestingly, this is actually one of the advantages of RF over both OVF and EVF -- the RF's view finder shows more than what the lens can see which aids in composition.)

One better solution is a hybrid OVF-EVF that provides an OVF's unrestricted view of the tonalities & color of the scene but then also offers an EVF's digital preview or captured image review. One could even imagine an OVF with EVF elements visible above and below the focusing screen image where the camera could show the histogram or thumbnail rendering. Current DSLRs have imaging sensors in the pentaprism that could be used to estimate the histogram and rendering without raising the mirror.