Canon mirrorless: Status?

[infared]

How about a mirrorless full frame camera stuck in an AE1 type body? No autofocus, full manual controls and good
battery life. Oh, wait - that's a Fuji XT1 in manual mode.

But the XT1 doesn't meet your criteria ... it's not full frame.

LMAOFOTF!!!!!! AWESOME! (XT1 does look like a cool camera though!)

 

[psolberg]

canon, like nikon, is an old world power in decline so off course they fear mirrorless because it means having to compete and start over in a world where their lens systems count for nothing or need to rely on adapters nobody wants.

So I don't expect to see anything exciting from canon or nikon until their APS-C sales are so bad that they are forced to evolve. This will be a fantastic chance to break free from mount lock in and I can't wait for it.

Having borrowed an A7s for some 4K video work, I have to say sony has all the right stuff. They are a huge company with huge technical muscle which moves twice as fast as nikon or canon. I'd love to see them outright buy nikon for the optics division. that would be a monster of a company.

 

[c.d.embrey]

Alternative theory: Mirrorless will evolve into something that looks very different from today's cameras. All cameras today are based on the idea that the photographer holds it close to his face with the viewfinder to his eye. Even cameras without viewfinders are based on that model, which is why they are so clunky to use. They ask you to take a design that was meant to be held close to the face to keep steady and then hold it away from your face, making it hard to compose, hold it steady and operate the controls.

Ergonomically, a smart phone is actually better to use than a camera without a viewfinder. It's small, light, fits naturally in one hand and is a lot easier to balance. Plus, you can hold it in one hand and use a finger to touch the focus point without shaking it.

I'm thinking that an innovative camera designer ought to be look at how people hold and use their smart phones and start designing cameras to take advantage of the smart phone model. Of course, I'm guessing that for the near future, that would pretty much preclude the idea of large sensors and large or long lenses.

As I've said in the past, for many Professional Photographers, a smart-phone will become their main camera. iPhone 7 maybe, iPhone 8 almost for sure.

Right now I can shoot table-top with M4/3. If Nikon would pull their head out of their and make a Pro Nikon 1. I could be shooting table-top with a 1" sensor within 18-24 months.

 

[ahsanford]

LOL, that seems to negate the biggest advantages of mirrorless!...

I had somewhat the same reaction. What's the point? Once you put a viewfinder on a mirrorless (and I wouldn't want one without a viewfinder) they start looking a whole lot like a DSLR.

To answer the question: It might be the future, if...electronic viewfinders can improve to the point where they are actually better than optical viewfinders. But they have to be better, not just equal or comparable.

I think that when and if mirrorless cameras replace DSLRs, they are likely to look very much like DSLRs because the basic form factor (a box with a viewfinder to look directly through to see the subject) has evolved into the easiest to use format for cameras available. Stepping backwards to the old view camera model where the photographer looks at a screen on the back of the camera may be fine for subjects that don't move much, but just isn't very convenient for accurate and quick composing of photographs.

My guess is that the transition will be gradual and if I were placing bets, I'd bet we are at least two to three generations away from a 5D Mirrorless.

Current mirrorless EVFs have some advantages over an OVF:

• If your eyes can process all this input, your eyeball is effectively seeing LiveView, so you are getting a true read of the shot, true DOF, a live histo, etc.
• An EVF can amplify low light, right? OVFs can't do that.

But the current tech has limitations -- LiveView all the time is a huge battery drain, there is some lag (i.e. 'we don't shoot many stills of moving things with LiveView'), resolution is still fairly limited compared to the fidelity your native eye can process through an OVF, etc.

A future EVF could be something special, though:

• Modularity could lead to EVF standard mounts and interchangeability with other systems -- more options for comfort or control.
• Electronic can be made modular (many EVFs are modular) and therefore removable. You could imagine a cord like an off-camera flash being used to have camera in place X and your eyeball and shutter release in place Y.
• No reason why you couldn't have a massive or tiny EVF based on the screen size, so you could pick that as well.
• A wireless off-camera EVF (without lag!) would also be terrific.
• Imagine control of the camera through that EVF. In a multiple camera shoot, you could pipe different cameras' view into one EVF for the best shot and tweak things all from one vantage point.
• We could go on and on here...

- A

 

[ahsanford]

Alternative theory: Mirrorless will evolve into something that looks very different from today's cameras. All cameras today are based on the idea that the photographer holds it close to his face with the viewfinder to his eye. Even cameras without viewfinders are based on that model, which is why they are so clunky to use. They ask you to take a design that was meant to be held close to the face to keep steady and then hold it away from your face, making it hard to compose, hold it steady and operate the controls.

Ergonomically, a smart phone is actually better to use than a camera without a viewfinder. It's small, light, fits naturally in one hand and is a lot easier to balance. Plus, you can hold it in one hand and use a finger to touch the focus point without shaking it.

I'm thinking that an innovative camera designer ought to be look at how people hold and use their smart phones and start designing cameras to take advantage of the smart phone model. Of course, I'm guessing that for the near future, that would pretty much preclude the idea of large sensors and large or long lenses.

Now you're thinking. We're wrestling with an awkward porthole to frame shots through when stepping back from the camera to frame up is certainly preferable. Right now on a smartphone or tablet, this is great for framing but not for holding / adjusting / taking the shot. The ergonomics need to evolve there.

- A

 

[Lee Jay]

Mirrorless has one huge advantage, the WYSIWYG (what you see is what you get) EVF.

To me, that's one of its biggest disadvantages. What I see in an EVF is virtually never what I get. What I see in the OVF is what I get because I post-process the images to look the way the scene did to my eye, not to some Japanese engineer who wrote the in-camera JPEG engine and never saw the scene.

What I see in the EVF is an over-contrasty version of reality with brights blown, blacks crushed, and colors looking unnatural.

 

[ahsanford]

canon, like nikon, is an old world power in decline so off course they fear mirrorless because it means having to compete and start over in a world where their lens systems count for nothing or need to rely on adapters nobody wants.

So I don't expect to see anything exciting from canon or nikon until their APS-C sales are so bad that they are forced to evolve. This will be a fantastic chance to break free from mount lock in and I can't wait for it.

Having borrowed an A7s for some 4K video work, I have to say sony has all the right stuff. They are a huge company with huge technical muscle which moves twice as fast as nikon or canon. I'd love to see them outright buy nikon for the optics division. that would be a monster of a company.

Sony are great at churning out products and they are great at component level horsepower (i.e. sensors). But I am not at all convinced that they understand the needs of photographers as well as Canon and Nikon.

Their pipeline has developed countless technological hits, industry firsts, etc. but I have yet to hear of professionals dropping their current company because Sony has nailed a camera top-to-bottom. I hear folks rave about the form factor and the sensor and that's about it. I have yet to hear someone rave about their controls, ergonomics, feel, etc. When that happens, then Nikon and Canon should worry.

I'd go a step further and state if professionals were offered a choice of any camera they'd want and all lenses were available natively in all mounts (so eliminate the I'm staying with Canon/Nikon b/c I have all this glass), most will still choose Canon and Nikon over Sony at this stage.

- A

 

[distant.star]

.
Canon is doing a classic rope-a-dope. The champ lets the challenger wear himself out, then he throws a knockout punch.

The steamroller of miniaturization will prevail, and mirrorless will be the near-term future.

My prediction is the current DSLR dies with the 2020 Olympics. Mirrorless will be the dominant camera technology at that event. After that, game over.

 

[9VIII]

Saw this picture today in a story at The Phoblographer:
http://www.thephoblographer.com/2014/08/20/review-sony-vgc1em-digital-camera-battery-grip-sony-a7a7ra7s/

And I think it's a stimulating photo to windup this discussion. Do you believe this is the future, or do you believe this is mirrorless trying to be / to do too much?

- A

At this point, it's just a camera. As long as it produces a picture the technology inside is virtually irrelevant. Cost versus functionality is still the primary consideration, no different than before.

I'm quite certain SLR and mirrorless will co-exist for a long time.
Which means we probably have a few thousand more of these threads to go through before new technology comes along and disrupts everything.

 

[c.d.embrey]

To me, that's one of its biggest disadvantages. What I see in an EVF is virtually never what I get. What I see in the OVF is what I get because I post-process the images to look the way the scene did ...

What I see in the EVF is an over-contrasty version of reality with brights blown, blacks crushed, and colors looking unnatural.

Do you use Custom Functions to adjust jpeg output. In this fast paced world many pros are bypassing Raw and using custom jpegs. The client can't see any IQ difference, but they like seeing the final photos immediately.

 

[Lee Jay]

To me, that's one of its biggest disadvantages. What I see in an EVF is virtually never what I get. What I see in the OVF is what I get because I post-process the images to look the way the scene did ...

What I see in the EVF is an over-contrasty version of reality with brights blown, blacks crushed, and colors looking unnatural.

Do you use Custom Functions to adjust jpeg output. In this fast paced world many pros are bypassing Raw and using custom jpegs. The client can't see any IQ difference, but they like seeing the final photos immediately.

I post-process every image that I plan to use for anything before it leaves my hands, whether it was shot in JPEG or raw.

 

[c.d.embrey]

Sony are great at churning out products and they are great at component level horsepower (i.e. sensors). But I am not at all convinced that they understand the needs of photographers as well as Canon and Nikon.
- A

Sony seems to be run by the people you ran the former Walkman division I was impressed with my new NEX 5n, but I've been waiting since 2011 for the lenses I want/need. The lack of lenses has cost them a NEX 7 sale and an a6000 sale. No way will I buy into a Sony system.

For those not familiar with the Sony Walkman, it was the dominate portable music player. Then Apple brought the iPod to market, and Sony had no reply

 

[AvTvM]

I see a very capable and compact camera without flapping mirror but with about 50% more resolution and 2 stops more DR than even the biggest of all big & fat [Canon] mirrorslappers. ;D

The picture also demonstrates nicely how much easier it is to make a small camera larger, rather than a large camera smaller.

http://www.thephoblographer.com/2014/08/20/review-sony-vgc1em-digital-camera-battery-grip-sony-a7a7ra7s/
And I think it's a stimulating photo to windup this discussion. Do you believe this is the future, or do you believe this is mirrorless trying to be / to do too much?

 

[mackguyver]

It looks like this has been one upped - this looks like a convenient 'rig' to carry around :

Source: Sony a7S used to shoot Chevrolet commercial

 

[Chuck Alaimo]

It looks like this has been one upped - this looks like a convenient 'rig' to carry around :

Source: Sony a7S used to shoot Chevrolet commercial

LOL!!!!!!

 

[Jamesy]

It looks like this has been one upped - this looks like a convenient 'rig' to carry around :

Source: Sony a7S used to shoot Chevrolet commercial

It has a convenient handy to carry it - nice! It looks very pocket-able indeed....

 

[AcutancePhotography]

• A wireless off-camera EVF (without lag!) would also be terrific.

Google Glasses?

No reason the eye piece has to be on the camera these days.

 

[Lee Jay]

• A wireless off-camera EVF (without lag!) would also be terrific.

Google Glasses?

No reason the eye piece has to be on the camera these days.

If you're trying to track anything, moving the camera differently than your head and/or eye is so horribly confusing that it makes that tracking nearly impossible on all but the slowest moving subjects.

 

[wickidwombat]

this is the EF-S and EF-M samyang / rokinon 8mm comparison
without even adding in the adapter there is a massive size difference already

 

[Taemobig]

If Canon releases an EOS M update similar to the Sony A5100 with nearly the same specs and price, I would totally be all over it. But for now, I'll rock on with the first EOS M.