[lesmore49]

Your K-1 does not have an EVF as usually defined. Neither does the G12. Both have a rear LCD monitor and optical viewfinders. Both the Nikon Z and Canon R have EVF similar to the Sony A7 series; all three lack any native optical viewfinder.


Steve

Thanks Steve for the correct information. I thought my K1 and G 12 had the EVF, didn't realize those two cameras have a rear LCD monitor instead, although as you say they (K1,G12) have optical viewfinders, which the Z,R and Sony A& series lack.

Les

---------- Post added 09-08-18 at 03:17 PM ----------

I'm confused at what you said. Because the EVF is the screen you stick your eye near. It isn't the rear LCD panel. The K-1 has an LCD but does not have an EVF.


The newer EVFs are improving and I have yet to read a negative word of regular joes who have tried out the new Nikon Z's for instance... even gung-ho DSLR fans. With the mirrorless systems coming out now, they have a larger mount that is closer to the sensor so designing corrected and faster lenses is easier. And now can adopt zebra stripes/focus peaking in the viewfinder, plus instant zooming in, never having to take the camera off your eye to check the rear panel to see if you got the shot. And it is easier to offer a larger view in the EVF with a mirrorless it seems. The Nikon has an 100% .8x view which is pretty large for a digital body. The K-1 is set at .7x, the D850 at .75x, and the Canon R at .76x so we are moving upwards...


Plus 100% or near 100% coverage of the AF points across the view.. And for Canon and Nikon, these specs are simply the start.


Also, since all these brands are competing against one another, they will likely not rest on their laurels.


While this might not appeal to people who have been around DSLRs for 50 years, and have grown accustom to the world the way it is, it probably will to most other people. Especially newer generations that are used to smartphones and small mirrorless cameras.

I tried an original Sony A7 last year and was horrified at how awful it was but the A7 II I also tried was improved and the Olympus even better. And those were older gens all... that tech is improving a lot more rapidly than I expected.

I don't know if we'll see DSLRs go the way of the dino, but I suspect in 5 years the market will be more Mirrorless ILCs than DSLRs at the rate we're going at the moment.

That said, if it does, DSLRs should be cheap on the used/second hand market... which means bargains.

Quite right Mee...I'm not too technologically informed about the differences between LCD/ EVF ..and among other modern electronic products too while I'm at it.

Les

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Last edited by lesmore49; 09-08-2018 at 01:18 PM.

[reh321]

I've been reading a lot ..this past week or so about the new FF mirrorless cameras from Nikon and Canon. Some think they have significant advantages over full frame DSLR's and perhaps they do. I don't really know. I've been a photographer for half a century and in that time have...and used...everything from medium format TLR's (Mamiya, Yashica) , rangefinder 35mm (Leica), SLR's, medium format SLR's/folders, etc. and of course DSLR's.

I've always liked...preferred...DSLR's and before them SLR's...and that preference has existed with me, for over half a century. At this point being an old guy, I'm going to stick with what I have in modern digital cameras...K-1, K5, K10D and the attendant lenses..as I'm happy with this stuff and it would be a considerable expense to change brands/type of camera, new lens mount lenses, etc.

But I do wonder with all the hype going on about the new full framer mirrorless.... Nikon Z series (camera and lens) and the new Canon R series...and with apparently Panasonic preparing to enter the fray...are these full framer mirrorlesss jobs going to eventually...say 5-10 years...displace the full frame DSLR ?

Some of the advantages that come to mind about the new mirrorless FF's are lighter weight, smaller size, no mirror flopping around, less complex. Then of course there are other considerations...sure you can get Nikon/Canon convertors to use the Nikon/Canon DSLR mount lenses...but these new cameras ...both Nikon/Canon...have their own lens line, which I think as individual budget allows...will be the way most people go, particularly those just choosing a FF camera body for the first time.

Anyways that's my idle speculation....what's yours ?

As far as mirrorless, FF bodies dominating the full frame market and DSLR systems eventually dying off...I don't know....but maybe you do..or have a better guess than me ?

Switching to a mirrorless full frame from Nikon/Canon is a pricey decision for many...which may come under the I want, but don't need.

Wonder asmore faster, FF mirrorless lenses come on line...if the mirrorless FF will eventually sulpant the DSLR FF ?

Whaddaya think and why ?

You are using "FF MILC" as though it were one concept. I have no idea whether DSLR or MILC will predominate - my guess is that they will "share the road" for the near future. I am fairly sure that APS will continue to predominate, just because of price.

[mee]

You are using "FF MILC" as though it were one concept. I have no idea whether DSLR or MILC will predominate - my guess is that they will "share the road" for the near future. I am fairly sure that APS will continue to predominate, just because of price.

That is an interesting point... price.


I find it interesting what Sony is doing... they aren't developing a robust series of tiers and then updating on those tiers. Instead of that they are moving older models lower in the tiering to fill out their lineup. It will be interesting to see if Canon and Nikon follow suit.


One can still buy a 4 year old a5100 for 350 bucks on B&H... it started at 550 USD originally.

[PJ1]

I believe the mainstream future will be in MILC simply because the traditional DSLR cannot deliver the same silent shutter (mirror slap), freedom from all vibration (the mirror again), and frame speed, to name just some advantages. When digital was developed, no one appears to have thought too much about what advantages there might be in the electronics involved apart from the digital recording mechanism itself. As soon as digital became competitive with film in resolution terms there was a reason to switch. since then it has been an evolutionary process where more electronic gizmos are incorporated into the system. Staying with the mirror is following tradition. Some of us like it for various reasons. And some of us like the advantages of the K-mount. But I believe that the pool of true believers will become smaller and smaller as time goes by. Pentax/Ricoh will follow the trend. They have already dipped a toe in the water - but not with an EVF. I like wildlife photography. If Pentax/Ricoh had offered a K-mount MILC (FF or APS-C) with the advantages I listed at the beginning, I would be in the running to get one. Until then, I see no reason to replace my K-3. But when it wear out, who knows?

[Kuzma]

In my opinion future lies with mirrorless cameras. After all mirror is just a part of a certain mechanism that for a long period had no good alternative. Now there is an alternative. So DSLR will give way for mirrorless. It will not happen fast and mirrorless cameras will not fully substitute DSLR but the majority of photographers (especially new generations) will prefer mirrorless. Pro photographers probably will be the last, who stop using DSLRs due the fact that DSLRs are still the most reliable cameras and because of a big amount of lenses they have.

[Pål Jensen]

No.
Nikon and Canon diversify in a shrinking market.
The benefit of the slr is the optical finder.

[reh321]

That is an interesting point... price.


I find it interesting what Sony is doing... they aren't developing a robust series of tiers and then updating on those tiers. Instead of that they are moving older models lower in the tiering to fill out their lineup. It will be interesting to see if Canon and Nikon follow suit.


One can still buy a 4 year old a5100 for 350 bucks on B&H... it started at 550 USD originally.

One can also purchase a Sony A7 for about $800 - it doesn't have IBIS, and isn't K-mount, but I suppose this might be a worthy alternative to a KP.

[mee]

One can also purchase a Sony A7 for about $800 - it doesn't have IBIS, and isn't K-mount, but I suppose this might be a worthy alternative to a KP.

The EVF is really long in the tooth on that one.. but otherwise yeah I suppose so if you can find what you want in E mount or through an adapter. Plus that A7 is FF so that's a nice touch..


I'm more interested in the A7 III or Z6 in a couple of years.. they could be cheap by then.. or at least compared to their 2 grand cost right now. Those are the generation I'd consider pass-able as far as the EVF is concerned.


It would be down to what adapters are offered by then for each and the level of performance with those adapters... The Z6 especially could be nice considering the mount specs Nikon developed for it.. potentially highly adaptable.

[surfar]

I'm more interested in the A7 III or Z6 in a couple of years.. they could be cheap by then.. or at least compared to their 2 grand cost right now. Those are the generation I'd consider pass-able as far as the EVF is concerned.

Yes, depreciation favors those who wait!

A7iii has double the battery and 2 cards.Its what i will wait for.

[biz-engineer]

In my opinion future lies with mirrorless cameras.

Then Nikon should be really concerned by designing their brand new PF lens tech for the F mount. Strange, the evaluation of the new 500 f5.6 PF prime lens was done with a D850, they did not use the Nikon Z7....
But, I agree, mirrorless will be the future for the consumer photographer, simply because manufacturing cost of mirrorless camera have the potential to be cheaper than DSLR. A lot of the comments about mirrorless being the future are from hobby photographer who don't have a lot of requirement in terms of autofocus performance.

---------- Post added 09-09-18 at 08:36 ----------

No.Nikon and Canon diversify in a shrinking market.The benefit of the slr is the optical finder.

From a camera maker standpoint, the downside of keeping the old mount is that customers keep using their old lenses for decades, and that's not making any money. The benefit new mount (justified by the mirrorless "advantage") is that the new mount triggers new sales of lenses for the years to come. When the first MILC is released, the adapter provides compatibility with legacy glass. However, when the second MILC model is release some of the new AF features eventually won't work with legacy glass, pushing the hooked MILC customer to buy new glass. Camera customers are for the camera maker, what the rabbit is for the hunter, mirrorless is the new "carrot" LoL

---------- Post added 09-09-18 at 08:42 ----------

At least when you buy new lenses for switching from apsc to full frame (or full frame to medium format), you gain a step up in image quality. But when you buy new lenses for switching from DSLR to MILC, you gain no benefit at all in terms of the quality of your images.

[Rondec]

The benefits of MILCs have to do with the lack of mirror and the "benefits" of EVFs. Losing the mirror can (but often doesn't) shrink the size of the camera, lets you focus on the sensor which should eliminate the need to calibrate lenses, and should take away camera shake caused by mirror movements. EVFs are a bit more of mixed bag. They take power to run and all but the highest end ones have some lag -- particularly in dark situations. They give you a decent idea of what your out of camera jpeg will look like, although this is not necessarily very useful if you are someone who does a lot of post processing. They have a variety of helps that allow the user to manual focus more easily and they are usable when shooting video.

It feels to me as though in my time on the Forum there have been two mantras which have been combined in this thread. One mantra is that full frame is going to kill all other size of sensors because "equivalence proves it's better." The second is that mirrorless cameras will rule the world and SLRs will become the stone age tools that they always were.

Five years ago people were predicting the demise of APS-C and SLRs and they are still doing so today. My feeling is that there is going to be a long period of coexistence. The biggest issue for mirrorless dominance is existing lens line ups. Biz-engineer is exactly right when he says that when you buy a camera with a new lens mount, you end up buying new lenses as well that you can mount on it without an adapter. Sony and Fuji have decent sized lens portfolios at this point, while Canon and Nikon don't for their mirrorless cameras. Photographers who own large numbers of F mount or EOS lenses are going to tend to continue shooting with those cameras. They may add an MILC for vacation purposes or something like that, but for serious work, they will use the cameras that they can mount their lenses on without an adapter.

The final thing to note is that other than a capability for extremely high frame rates, there isn't much that MILCs actually do differently than SLRs. The photos that are produced actually look very similar to those from SLRs. Give Ansel Adams an A9 and he comes away with 60 images of Half Dome that look exactly like the single one he took with his large format camera on film. More images? Yes. Better images? Now, that is debatable...

[biz-engineer]

The benefits of MILCs have to do with the lack of mirror and the "benefits" of EVFs

The benefits of EVF are that you see what you get and you see the histogram, so, you could perfect your exposure or see how a B&W would render when looking through the viewfinder. That's for slow shooting because there is no way one could adjust those parameters when shooting moving subjects. When doing slow shooting (meaning there is plenty of time..), I can do exactly the same with the live view mode of my DSLR: I can tweak the exposure, I can see how my B&W looks like if I use JPEG camera presets. But, with liver view there is no way I can see what I will get after post processing my RAW files, simply because if I shoot RAW, my camera doesn't know that curves I will used to convert my RAW in lightroom or other. And, what is true for live view is also true for an EVF, there is no way I can see in the EVF what I will get after converting my RAW file. So, the argument of ËVF is What You See is What You Get is only applicable if you shoot JPEG. And, the exposure adjustment via EVF histogram is only valid if I shot JPEG directly or if I use the same curve in my RAW conversion software. If I shoot slowly, I can use live view, I don't need another camera to have an EVF. That the first thing. Now, if I shoot moving subjects, sport events , weddings etc so that I eventually need to enable AF tracking, there is no way I have enough time to look into my EVF and adjust exposure, histogram etc., I need to have the camera do that automatically for me and concentrate on framing, my DSLR already does that already.

lets you focus on the sensor which should eliminate the need to calibrate lenses

I'm afraid that on my 4 pentax bodies, I never had to calibrate my AF. On my K1, all AF fine tuning are set to 0. Now, if I have to calibrate my AF for a couple a fast lenses, it's not a big deal, it's done once and saved the camera, I prefer to do this and not have to spend thousands into a new system that makes my lenses inappropriate.

should take away camera shake caused by mirror movements

The mirror shake is removed, but the double shutter actuation increase shutter shock and can't be removed, while you can always enable MLU on a DSLR.

IF I would buy a new camera system from scratch , I could consider mirrorless if the lenses I want are available, but if I already have a DSLR equipment I'm happy with I see not point in spending that much money into equipment just because it has an EVF.

---------- Post added 09-09-18 at 12:59 ----------

I mean, if I would have enough budget to buy a new mirrorless system with the lenses, my images would benefit more by spending the money into a second hand medium format camera and two lenses. The EVF with the same image sensor as DSLR isn't going to improve my images, that's my point of view.

[Rondec]

The benefits of EVF are that you see what you get and you see the histogram, so, you could perfect your exposure or see how a B&W would render when looking through the viewfinder. That's for slow shooting because there is no way one could adjust those parameters when shooting moving subjects. When doing slow shooting (meaning there is plenty of time..), I can do exactly the same with the live view mode of my DSLR: I can tweak the exposure, I can see how my B&W looks like if I use JPEG camera presets. But, with liver view there is no way I can see what I will get after post processing my RAW files, simply because if I shoot RAW, my camera doesn't know that curves I will used to convert my RAW in lightroom or other. And, what is true for live view is also true for an EVF, there is no way I can see in the EVF what I will get after converting my RAW file. So, the argument of ËVF is What You See is What You Get is only applicable if you shoot JPEG. And, the exposure adjustment via EVF histogram is only valid if I shot JPEG directly or if I use the same curve in my RAW conversion software. If I shoot slowly, I can use live view, I don't need another camera to have an EVF. That the first thing. Now, if I shoot moving subjects, sport events , weddings etc so that I eventually need to enable AF tracking, there is no way I have enough time to look into my EVF and adjust exposure, histogram etc., I need to have the camera do that automatically for me and concentrate on framing, my DSLR already does that already.



I'm afraid that on my 4 pentax bodies, I never had to calibrate my AF. On my K1, all AF fine tuning are set to 0. Now, if I have to calibrate my AF for a couple a fast lenses, it's not a big deal, it's done once and saved the camera, I prefer to do this and not have to spend thousands into a new system that makes my lenses inappropriate.


The mirror shake is removed, but the double shutter actuation increase shutter shock and can't be removed, while you can always enable MLU on a DSLR.

IF I would buy a new camera system from scratch , I could consider mirrorless if the lenses I want are available, but if I already have a DSLR equipment I'm happy with I see not point in spending that much money into equipment just because it has an EVF.

---------- Post added 09-09-18 at 12:59 ----------

I mean, if I would have enough budget to buy a new mirrorless system with the lenses, my images would benefit more by spending the money into a second hand medium format camera and two lenses. The EVF with the same image sensor as DSLR isn't going to improve my images, that's my point of view.

True. I am just trying to make the best case scenario for MILCs. People who are MILC proponents always make it sound as though it was amazing that anyone managed to get a sharp photo with an SLR when the reality is that up until recently SLRs were significantly better than MILCs when it came to any shooting that involved movement and tracking. SLRs are still excellent and are good enough for most photographers, depending on the price point.

[Winder]

I've been reading a lot ..this past week or so about the new FF mirrorless cameras from Nikon and Canon. Some think they have significant advantages over full frame DSLR's and perhaps they do. I don't really know. I've been a photographer for half a century and in that time have...and used...everything from medium format TLR's (Mamiya, Yashica) , rangefinder 35mm (Leica), SLR's, medium format SLR's/folders, etc. and of course DSLR's.

I've always liked...preferred...DSLR's and before them SLR's...and that preference has existed with me, for over half a century. At this point being an old guy, I'm going to stick with what I have in modern digital cameras...K-1, K5, K10D and the attendant lenses..as I'm happy with this stuff and it would be a considerable expense to change brands/type of camera, new lens mount lenses, etc.

But I do wonder with all the hype going on about the new full framer mirrorless.... Nikon Z series (camera and lens) and the new Canon R series...and with apparently Panasonic preparing to enter the fray...are these full framer mirrorlesss jobs going to eventually...say 5-10 years...displace the full frame DSLR ?

Some of the advantages that come to mind about the new mirrorless FF's are lighter weight, smaller size, no mirror flopping around, less complex. Then of course there are other considerations...sure you can get Nikon/Canon convertors to use the Nikon/Canon DSLR mount lenses...but these new cameras ...both Nikon/Canon...have their own lens line, which I think as individual budget allows...will be the way most people go, particularly those just choosing a FF camera body for the first time.

Anyways that's my idle speculation....what's yours ?

As far as mirrorless, FF bodies dominating the full frame market and DSLR systems eventually dying off...I don't know....but maybe you do..or have a better guess than me ?

Switching to a mirrorless full frame from Nikon/Canon is a pricey decision for many...which may come under the I want, but don't need.

Wonder asmore faster, FF mirrorless lenses come on line...if the mirrorless FF will eventually sulpant the DSLR FF ?

Whaddaya think and why ?

Short answer is that "yes" mirrorless will replace the DSLR for most people. The advantages of mirrorless when it comes to AF, tracking, accuracy, speed, & control are significant and those advantages will become greater as mirrorless technology continues to advance. The latest EVFs are exceeding what the human eye can perceive in terms of resolution and refresh rate.

Some people are going to prefer DSLRs just as some people prefer rangefinders and film. I don't think DSLRs are ever going to disappear, but mirrorless will eventually dominate the market. There are still many challenges for mirrorless and many technical hurdles that need to be over come. We need to get flash sync to work with electronic shutters (and global) to eliminate the mechanical shutter.

[rawr]

We need to get flash sync to work with electronic shutters (and global) to eliminate the mechanical shutter.

But mechanical shutter seems best at overcoming the 'rolling shutter' that plagues digital video. So no camera maker is going to kill mechanical shutter just to make flash sync work better.