Is SLR dead?

[gmrza]

in the long run… yes

In the long run, we are all dead.

Not until you can hold the camera up to your eye and actually see what you are shooting as clearly as you can with today's SLRs.

When it becomes possible to provide an electronic viewfinder, metering system and AF more cheaply and reliably and to at least the same level of quality as with a reflex mirror, the reflex mirror will become obsolete.

The other challenge which has to be overcome when shooting without a mirror is low shutter latency.  You can see this when you shoot in live-view mode that the delay until the exposure is taken is much longer.  That delay is unacceptable in a lot of circumstances.  I think there is a lot of work that needs to be done to get that delay to the level required to shoot sports.
In short, a mirrorless camera will need to shoot at 12fps, with the viewfinder active between frames, and with negligible shutter lag before the mirror will become obsolete.  I don't see that as impossible, I just see it as being a few years away.

Now if camera makers could make a totally electronic shutter at the same time .... that would be sweet!

[moreorless]

Look at two other consumer trends:
Music Quality
Video Quality

There was a time when people sat down and listened to music.  Today, people just download compressed music.  there are always going to be audiophiles, but they are the minority.  I'm one of them, but I know it's not the norm. 

Then there is Blu-ray.  Where can you rent those today?  How big is the Blu-ray section in your local electronics retailer?  Again, I've got a movie set-up at home, but I'm the minority.  I didn't think people would ever watch movies and video on small screens, but it's happening.

On one side, we have quality...image quality, video quality, sound quality.  On the other side, we have convenience, weight, on-demand, cost, etc.  I don't know if SLRs will diminish in sales numbers, but for all those that don't think it's even a remote possibility, those people aren't looking outside of their own world.

This seems like a bit of a different arguement to me, agenst higher image quality generally rather than SLR's as the preffered basis for that quality.

I'd argue that photography had its "shift to convenience" a decade ago with the digital revolution and what were seeing today is a shift back towards quality.

[wickidwombat]

This is what I dont get, people say that technology is closing the gap between small sensors and large sensors
everyone that uses this argument as essentially comparing an unspecified future tech sensor with a current larger sensor, the fundamental flaw in this is thinking that the same technological enhancements will really be applied to the larger sensors or in fact even greater technological advances.

the second significant fault in the whole arguement is ergonomics for me the 5D is the ideal form I dont want to shoot all day with anything small or bigger if i can help it for many the perfect size is the 1D or many again maybe the rebel is the perfect fit or perhaps the 1J is just the right size

Small isnt necessarily the best it all reminds me of the mobile phones in zoolander. The minature camera while perhaps convenient for certain things cannot beat well designed and evolved designs of DSLRs the 5Dmk3 IMO is the most comfortable to use camera ever built so far they have really nailed the design and ergonomics with this one

[aznable]

I think that SLRs, like everything else, will eventually die, being replaced by the next thing...  when and how this will happen, only time will tell!    I think mirrorless is the first step, and the fact that a lot of the P&S cameras are getting better and better!

Yes, but even if P&S reach SLR in terms of IQ, noise and ISO performance, we will not have the same DOF using small sensors....

we are not talking about cameras with small sensors, but cameras without a mirror/pentaprism...or at least is what i am talking about

[gmrza]

This is what I dont get, people say that technology is closing the gap between small sensors and large sensors
everyone that uses this argument as essentially comparing an unspecified future tech sensor with a current larger sensor, the fundamental flaw in this is thinking that the same technological enhancements will really be applied to the larger sensors or in fact even greater technological advances.

Regardless of the technological advancement of small sensors, they cannot achieve the aesthetics of an image produced on a large sensor.  For that reason, for many enthusiast uses and professional use, a large sensor will remain important.

I think there are also many more photography enthusiasts than there were 20 years ago.  The digital revolution has democratised quality as far as photography is concerned.

[paulc]

A cheap and easy low-end will almost always grow, evolve and eventually replace the high-end.  The high-end gets chased into a continually smaller niche until it's irrelevant.

[Bennymiata]

The old 35mm rangefinder cameras didn't oust SLR's back in the film days, even thought their lenses may have been just as good, and the quality of the film was obviously identical, and neither will mirrorless oust the DSLR.
SLR's have been around for a long, long time and many see DSLR's as something to aspire to, as well as those people that want good images.
I got my first SLR in 1966, and it was about 10 years old then!
While today's mirrorless cameras will improve, and their sales should also, DSLR's will also improve and will still have a large share of the camera market for decades to come.

Mirrorless cameras may be selling well in Japan and Taiwan, but they tend to go with fads far more than most Western coultures, and they love miniaturisation far more than we do.
Let's see how their sales are in a few more years, as I believe even they will realise that there just isn't anything as good as a DSLR in the long run.

[peederj]

I think they will be replaced by medium format. 

[briansquibb]

I think they will be replaced by medium format. 

An 80mps @ 4 fps MF would create interest on a seismic scale 

[AvTvM]

Now if camera makers could make a totally electronic shutter at the same time .... that would be sweet!

Of course! All digital cameras will be free of mechanical crap, and all electronic. Only that way will we finally be able to really reap all fruits of digital photography and finally overcome the remaining remnants of early days analogue-mechanical-chemical photography. 

I see this very near ... electronic shutters are possible today ... at virtually any framerate ... as proven in any videocam at any price point and any quality level from smartphione to broadcast TV cam to higheswt end cine cam. :-)

After that the only remaining burden from early day photography holding us back will be optical systems made of ground glass blocks. Those need to go away as well. And they will. On the low end it will be gel-filled transparent bags for shape-shiftable lenses [as used today in mobile phones already], in the long run it will be some quantum mechanics device bending and shaping photon flows in any which way. Virtuelly unlimited Tilt, Shift and lightfield capture will be integral parts of the future photography game.

No idea, how long that will take ... for sure it still is a couple  of years out ... but it will come. Maybe Canon and all the other industry players acting as "maintainers of status quo" will have to go out of existence first, so that new companies such as Lytro helped on by dominant consumer electronics players like Apple will pull it of. :-)

[Jettatore]

Far enough into the future and I can imagine organic cameras.  Imagine a cloned 'eagle's eye' lens to replace your heavy 600mm, etc..... 

[briansquibb]

I wonder how many commenting have done sports on an EVIL body?

Even shooting Kids on an EVIL is very hard when they are running around.

There is a long way to go before the optical mirror is surpassed

[moreorless]

This is what I dont get, people say that technology is closing the gap between small sensors and large sensors
everyone that uses this argument as essentially comparing an unspecified future tech sensor with a current larger sensor, the fundamental flaw in this is thinking that the same technological enhancements will really be applied to the larger sensors or in fact even greater technological advances.

I'd guess that optics are going to increasing become a barrier aswell, these new 24MP ASPC sensors really seem to be struggling to find a lenses that give good sharpness across the frame.

the second significant fault in the whole arguement is ergonomics for me the 5D is the ideal form I dont want to shoot all day with anything small or bigger if i can help it for many the perfect size is the 1D or many again maybe the rebel is the perfect fit or perhaps the 1J is just the right size

There actually seems to be alot of room for DSLR's to devolp in this area aswell to me, at the moment size and quality go together but I think theres alot of potential for quality to be reduced in size ala Pentax.

[paul13walnut5]

@briansquibb

I wonder how many commenting have done sports on an EVIL body?

Even shooting Kids on an EVIL is very hard when they are running around.

There is a long way to go before the optical mirror is surpassed

Maybe the Sony SLT system is the future, I remember pellicle cameras were the go to option for sports folks, and of course, no mirror flip means EF-s lenses could in theory be used on cameras with an FF sensor (and EF-s mount, obviously)

Olympus made a camera a few years back, the E-330, which was unremarkable in every way except that it managed to have both an optical finder and live view similtaniously, although like current DSLRs, it had to drop the mirror to get the best AF,  maybe a combination of the two systems would be an ideal:

Full time live view, full time optical finder, with full time phase detection AF? Would make for a complex prism path and unusual camera shape, but then is it form over function, or function over form.

The only CSC that really appealed to me was the GF1, I really really liked the Panasonic Lumix L1  / leica digi whatever and would liked to have seen a scaled down micro 4/3rds version  (again, optical finder and live view - adapted from e-330 but in a nicer shaped body) and with its aperture ring and shutter dial could be a fuji x competitor...

The problem with csc's is that anything other than a pancake just isn't really all that usefully compact.

[Rocky]

It is a little bit to early to sound the Death bell for DSLR. Will it happen??? May be quite a few years down the road. Some posts here sound like science friction. They are a little bit far fetch. Let us look at what we have now:
Fast auto focusing without mirror: Nikon 1, Olympus OM-D has it. Canon on T4i???
Semi-transparent Mirror: Canon has it 50 years ago and give it up, Sony SLT now. Is there any problem? Decrease actual lens speed for sure. Ghosting, unsharpness, maybe?
Electronics view finder: we have it now.But can we live with the delay and distortion due to delay???
Electronic shutter: we have it now. But do we want to  expose the sensor while we are changing lens? We can put an automatic blind to protect the sensor while we are changing lens. But this will slow down the lens changing process (slightly) and have more mechanical parts.
Practically, I can see a 2 parallel path for a long while:  1. For light weight and smaller size: Canon S100 or G1 X type with fast AF. 2. DSLR for speed and versatility.  As it is now, I do not see the practicality of  interchangeable mirrorless digital camera. I was playing with the Olympus OM-D for awhile  couple weeks ago. It has FAST AF. But the view finder gave me a headache.