Nikon versus Canon: A Story of Technology Change
medium.learningbyshipping.com
medium.learningbyshipping.com
- Canon came out with Image Stabilization lenses first and had a 3 to 4 year head start on Nikon. (Arguably, Nikon invented VR Vibration Reduction first but they didn't beat Canon to market by making professional lenses immediately.) This started the mass exodus of professionals to Canon and caused the "sea of white lenses" you see at every sports event.[1]
- Canon bet on in-house CMOS technology for sensors instead of Nikon's strategy of partnering with Sony (and Kodak). Canon iterated faster on their digital cameras. In 2002, Canon had a very well-received 1ds full-frame digital while Nikon only offered a body for Kodak's horrible Dcs Pro 14n. Nikon didn't have their own full-frame camera until 2007. In technology races, 5 years is an eternity. Although the most expensive camera is never the best-selling product, any leadership position in the top-of-the-line camera can be leveraged and its features can trickle down to the cheaper mass-market cameras.
- Canon was the bigger company with other profitable product domains outside of cameras such as photocopiers, video camcorders, printers, etc. (E.g. Canon made the imaging engine for both Apple LaserWriter and HP LaserJet.) This allowed them to plow more capital and investments back into the camera division. Nikon also some other domains such as scientific microscopes and film scanners but they were less profitable.
In the film days, Nikon definitely had the perception of being the "Ferrari" of cameras but the shift to digital allowed Canon to take the lead.
[1] https://www.google.com/search?q="telephoto+lenses"+sports+ev...
- Canon was first to market with an affordable DSLR. Nikon may have had the first mainstream pro model (the D1), but Canon was first to the prosumer market with the D30. With everyone soon transitioning to digital, this would prove to be a key market (and soon dominated by Canon's 5D series).
- Canon was also first to strike big with a competent video DSLR, the 5D MkII. This would spawn a whole new market for video professionals and people getting into video, with Nikon playing catch up (even today still, Canon's AF for video is unmatched).
Actually it goes back to before optical stabilization. Nikon was first to market with auto focus (F3AF) but that was pretty clunky and only two compatible AF lenses were manufactured. By the time its successor, the F4, was released Nikon was competing with Canon's EOS-1.
Canon and Nikon took very different approaches. Canon used a brand new lens mount with high torque motors in the lenses. Nikon abandoned in-lens motors and went for in-body motors and reused the existing F mount. There were (and still are) pros and cons to the different approaches, but at the end of the day the EOS-1's autofocus was better for birding and sports than the F4's. That's when you saw pros start to abandon Nikon en masse. Image stabilization and digital were just insult to injury.
I think the biggest thing hobbling Nikon is the way they design and build their their products. The guy that runs lensrentals.com tests and disassembles lenses and blogs about it. Canon tends to use modular, easier to repair (and presumably easier to assemble in a factory with precision) components. Nikon's stuff still looks almost handmade and far more finicky.
They aren't pushing features like video to their consumer lineups very aggressively, because they don't want to cannibalize the sales of their cine lineup (where a $50k body is almost entry-level). At one point, a lot of the innovation was happening via the Magic Lantern project, which is an open-sourced firmware replacement emerging from the community, and it seemed that Canon was (understandably) not really interested in helping.
In that classic echo of Canon moving into the electronic/autofocus niche that Nikon left underserved, Sony was perfectly happy to move into the video niche that Canon left underserved. Sony's MILCs started as niche products, but they've gotten better and better, their consumer cameras are 99% as good as Canon/Nikon's best but a fraction of the price, and their flagship stuff is just off the charts.
About 5 years back, Sony added on-sensor phase-detect pixels, which have put them into contention with DSLR-class products, if not actually better. For stills, they perform virtually on par with in-prism phase-detect sensors. They are much better than contrast-detect AF. For video, they can actually autofocus while shooting, which a DSLR cannot do (if the mirror is up, no light can get to the sensors in the prism to focus) and DSLRs must fall back to contrast-detect, which is quite slow.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=up8K_xd_iwU&t=628
On top of that, it's quite a bit cheaper to ditch the mirror box and viewfinder (or go electronic), and it lets you build a much smaller camera. DSLRs are fundamentally limited by their register distance (sensor-to-mount distance), MILC has no mirror so the register distance can be much smaller.
Canon's MILC products are hot garbage, they tried a token product a couple years ago but they were timid to avoid cannibalizing their DSLR and video lineups. So it was a terrible product, combining the worst characteristics of every system on the market. Small sensor, terrible AF, late to market, tiny selection of lenses. I haven't been following too closely but maybe they will make a more serious attempt next time. For the time being though, they have effectively ceded a niche that is growing in importance.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LO7rxitFLZg
To put it in a nutshell, MILCs are now "Good Enough", and Canon has missed the boat. SLRs have inertia but they won't forever, there are really only a handful of places where they have a legitimate advantage, and those are fading quickly. Meanwhile, they are more expensive than MILCs for an equivalent amount of capability.
As for sensors, Canon may have iterated faster earlier, but they haven't kept up lately. Sony's sensors are flat-out better: higher-resolution, better high-ISO performance, PDAF pixels, etc. Nikon's products are actually technically superior to Canon's at this point, because they're using Sony sensors and Canon insists on using their own in-house slop.
Sony, meanwhile, has slapped their sensor on a shake table and now has in-body IS/VR like Pentax (which admittedly is not as good as in-lens VR, but you can always disable in-body VR if your lens supports in-lens VR). And their high-ISO stuff is just godly, we're talking about shooting at ISO 102k or 204k and getting a pretty decent image/video out of it.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CVLBHMbRMW4
It's that classic story of a company that becomes too entrenched in its existing revenue streams and can no longer innovate out of fear of cutting its own throat... and then another company goes ahead and does it anyway, and the slumbering giant has no response prepared. Just like when Nikon let Canon take a foothold.
(edit: looks like Canon released a new MILC a month ago that is at least a reasonable effort, although it has some quirks, really lacks any unique/compelling features, and is about 5 years late to the party)
The main mirror is semi-transparent and reflects most of the light to the viewfinder prism. A smaller part goes through and is reflected by a sencodary mirror to the af sensor in the bottom.
Mirrorless interchangeable-lens camera
Also a great point about R&D budget during the digital transition. Canon definitely was going "in house" for digital whereas Nikon viewed digital almost as Kodak did--a different film back.
I think it would be great to see some Canon or Nikon tech in smartphone cameras, but they should've tried to do it like 5 years ago. I'm not even sure they'd have that much to offer smartphone makers at this point, for the same reason Intel wouldn't have too much to offer to Qualcomm in the smartphone market at this point - these companies already have all the expertise and experience they need in the markets they already dominate.
Smartphones have already almost completely wiped out the compact camera and "amateur" market for DSLRs. The predominance of ML accelerators in smartphones and new innovations (like using multiple cameras, or light-field tech, which Google may still use in future Pixels) is going to take smartphone cameras to the next level in the next 10 years.
Smart phone is on a different market that they inherently have no experience or incentive to pursue.
Drone and creative creator are what they should always be looking for in the first place.
It used to be that people would have a phone and a compact camera. Nowadays there's almost parity between phones and compact cameras (at least low-end compacts), so if you want to get a second camera you get a DSLR or a mirrorless, rather than a compact camera. To add to that, DSLRs and mirrorless cameras are now cheaper than ever.
I bought a Nikon DSLR (Most expensive purchase till then), thinking that I would take it around whenever I go out for fun trips.
I did take it out often. I had some great pictures with it. No problems, not even today.
But after I got the Pixel 2 XL, the pain points with DSLRs are obvious for regular shooting. They need to be charged, the SD card needs to be put in a computer to transfer files, and they're bulky so carrying them is a problem.
So now, when I want to take a nice quick photo, I wish I had my DSLR, but I take the photo with my phone anyway, and I don't think much about it.
I'm not saying DSLR are going to be completely irrelevant. But they're getting so close to the ideal picture quality for normal photos (i.e. no shutter speed or focus requirements) they're just fine. And the problem is they're getting better.
They won't replace the full-frame cameras with have large ecosystems around them, but they'll make people like me think twice before buying a DSLR.
This is true for all phones, no matter the cost. They simply can't compete with much cheaper but dedicated cameras for one vital reason: the sensor and lenses sizes plus noise. Phones need to be thin and they can devote only a small part of their area to a sensor plus lens. That lens also must follow a certain width/depth ratio to minimize image distortion, so if it's thin it also must be narrow, followed by a narrow sensor as well. Since a narrow sensor is exposed to less light than a larger one, to obtain the same level it has to be pushed to higher sensitivity to cope with lesser light, hence the higher noise.
The picture taking I do on my phone is very different I do on my dslr. As for battery life maybe I'm not shooting enough but I've literally never "had" to charge it. I don't even bother bringing the charger anymore, the damn battery refuses to die. I just charge it after a trip or once a month at home. Fat SD card means same for memory.
Are you shooting in raw and editing your photos?
Yep, I do the whole works. All of them in RAW, spending an hour or so editing in Lightroom (with favorite presets), have a flickr (like every other DSLR owner). But it stopped being fun after seeing that so many people do the same 'artistic' stuff, it doesn't feel like I'm doing something 'worthwhile' anymore. Now I just want to take photos and videos with friends. I find them more important.
I used to care about the right focus, shutter speed etc. But with a phone, if you use the portrait mode, you get something like f/1.5, and if you don't, you get something like f/18. So that almost takes care of the focus problem for a lot of cases.
When it comes to shutter speed, I use the high shutter speed when there are faster moving objects. That's a problem with a phone, but with enough photos taken quickly, one of them usually turns out good. People use low shutter speed only for long exposure shots like nightsky, waterflow, etc. which isn't a 'normal' photo.
Low light is one place I guess where a phone can't exactly do as well, but as I said, it just needs to be good enough, and not perfect.
About the battery of DSLR, often I don't take it out anymore, and between uses, the battery is so low that I have to charge it. So it leave it, and next time, its pretty much dead. Poor maintenance, but it again ties into if it is worth it.
Unfortunately for DSLRs for my purposes, the joy of shooting one is vastly outweighed by the inconvenience of transporting it.
Once ICEs are dramatically less convenient than electric vehicles, I suspect I’ll give up stick shift too. Hoping that day is a long way away.
Going beyond that, innovative ideas light the extreme mult-lens systems from Light start to offer features a DSLR can’t reproduce in a form factor closer to a smartphone. Disruptive innovation comes from flipping orthodoxies and that is exactly what we’re seeing.
Nikon's sensor advantage only began with the D3. Prior to that, Canons knocked the socks off of everyone else.
I have a 5DSR and a bunch of lenses, and don’t get me wrong, it is a fantastic camera...but, innovation in the form factor of cameras would be a welcome change. The existing industrial design is overly informed by the constraints of a roll of film, but, is not either the most ergonomic or the most stable position to hold a camera. We could do much better if we’d give it up.
Small size mirrorless bodies really show what’s wrong with the current style, too. They’re difficult to hold on to, and the buttons are virtually all dual purpose. At least the 5D has a nice grip, but with any kind of telephoto it becomes pretty awkward to stabilize.
Finally, with a “pistol format” camera, you can extend the viewfinder back from the lens, which can let you keep the existing big lenses and sensors but make an overall smaller package (the components move into the grip). This shallow sensor-lens depth is the main impediment to putting full frame glass and sensors into the standard small size mirrorless bodies. As has been cited elsewhere in this thread, smaller glass with higher density sensors is not a long term solution. Big glass does have a lot of advantages for high end photographs.
I can see how that would be great for taking pictures at airports and major crowded events -- especially if one is black or middle-eastern...
Seriously, what would the improvement be? It would be tedious to hold pistol-like, and more shaky than current designs. And it's not like it hasn't been tried (e.g. old 8mm film cameras were like that).
>As has been cited elsewhere in this thread, smaller glass with higher density sensors is not a long term solution.
It has already eclipsed bigger glass. And not just smaller glass, but the tiny kind of glass in mobile phones (sub 1").
For most people, that's it, and bigger glass is only for specialists and enthusiasts (trucks vs cars -- for most people the mobile camera is their car, and pro cameras are trucks for limited people).
And of course it's only gonna get better -- an major mobile phone with like 1" sensors (plus all the processing advancements inside due to the crazily better than even a pro DSLR/mirroless processor) gonna wipe out what's remaining from the compact market too.
We seem to have fallen a long way as a society though that I can’t discount your worry that the police will kill you for taking photos with an odd shaped camera.
Specifically, though, I was talking about high end cameras. There are some high capability cameras in bodies that really make them unpleasant to use. The a7r in particular. Great results, but terrible ergonomics. And, there’s a reason people still use canon lenses on Sony cameras.
I agree on mobile phones though, my iphoneX is where I take almost all non critical photos. If only I had a flash sync I’d be in good shape.
For the former, it doesn't matter if you're a little shaky, and for the latter, it's expected to be shaky (the power tool generates shake). So not sure if those are the best examples for camera design based on that (and power tools can tire your hands if hold for an extended period of time).
>Specifically, though, I was talking about high end cameras. There are some high capability cameras in bodies that really make them unpleasant to use. The a7r in particular. Great results, but terrible ergonomics. And, there’s a reason people still use canon lenses on Sony cameras.
That I agree with, but I'm not sold on the pistol grip.
Perhaps if it also has a shoulder mount -- like video dslr pisto-like grips to stabilize it.
Try mounting a handle to your tripod mount once or twice. I think you’ll be surprised how well it works. (Use a remote trigger in your left hand).
https://www.amazon.com/J-B-Camera-Designs-Grip-Base-A7RII/dp...
It does seem... nonsensical... for Canon to have shrunk the body on a camera that uses standard sized lenses. My daily carry lens is the 28-70 F2.8 and there's no way I could comfortably carry that without a body extension to grip.
If you really want a pistol grip, they do sell what is essentially a rifle stock for a camera [3]. All you'd need to do is attach a remote shutter release to your pistol grip and you're be good to go.
[1] https://petapixel.com/2017/09/05/news-photographer-shot-cop-...
[2] https://www.independent.ie/irish-news/bizarre-scenes-as-star...
[3] https://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/554798-REG/Stedi_Stoc...
Try shooting prime lenses instead of zooms. By cutting down your lens, you have to change your image by walking around instead of zooming, and I find it to be a more pleasant experience. Besides, primes have a faster max aperture than zooms, so they are amazing in low light. Zooms are distracting, heavy, and obnoxious. Useful for sports and potentially some journalism, but for portraits, art, and street shooting, a few primes are my favorite way to go. 28mm, 40mm, and maybe up to an 85. But I tend to stick with 40mm and 57mm primes for a day out on the street. Quite compact, especially the 40mm.
Agree about walking around, moving, rather than zooming. Zoom is nice, but I feel like it is a privilege to earn, and I'm never really sure if I've earned it. It does provide some benefits.
The next important step for both companies will be the transition to mirrorless technology. As µFT and the Sony A7/A9 are showing, mirrorless is the next step in camera technology. It will be interesting to watch how Canon and Nikon approach this transition. As both companies currently make their money with SLRs, it is a risky step, but an inevitable one. If one of them missteps in that transition, it means at least a big set back if not a complete loss of their role in the camera market.
And this can only become a bigger issue since resolution increases while sensor size shrinks or stays the same. It is an old truism that you should care more about the quality of your lenses than your camera body, and that hasn't really changed.
The only problem is low light. My 600D takes fine photos in sunlight or with a flash, but otherwise the sensor noise is awful.
Seriously though, the comment about focusing on lenses instead of bodies is spot-on. Photography is the art of manipulating light, be that via off-camera flash, better lenses or picking the right time of day.
Getting a fancier camera body only lets you pick up the electrons that are already there, you'll see much larger improvements in your photo quality if you focus on the other things first.
Most wide-aperture lenses have larger AF motors to compensate with the exception of a few unique lenses that use a gear instead of servo motor(USM in canon parlance).
I would have said that the advantage in sensor size of 35mm DSLRs would give them a long-lasting advantage over anything with a smaller sensor, even with advances in that technology.
Sony's mirrorless camera is also more compact than SLR cameras with smaller (APS-C) sensors: http://camerasize.com/compare/#724,708
They're also quieter (no mirror slap) and having an electronic viewfinder allows you to see what will be recorded. For example, you can directly see the effect of a longer exposure or higher sensitivity.
As in most hardware devices, less moving mechanical parts is an advantage. Sensor size is unrelated these days.
In general terms, Panasonic had the better motion video features, Olympus had the better stills, but it was / is pretty fuzzy, and a closely matched feature set.
One of my top five favourite blog posts ever is an impassioned rant [1] about digital Full Frame sensors, originally published in 2008 before they became generally affordable (but while they were still very much a fantasy for many photographers who didn't really understand why they wanted one). Updated over the years, and still worth the read.
As someone entering the field without a large collection of (by contemporary standards) poorly designed, overweight, ill-suited lenses -- it was a less complex decision to identify the path that most closely resembled an open standard.
[1] http://www.digitalsecrets.net/secrets/FullFrameWars.html
[1] Meanwhile Leica managed to bring their digital M cameras to 35mm, getting excellent image quality even in the corners with a mix out of clever sensor design and in-camera post processing.
If so, it's sitting tied for the #1 spot of next lenses I'm getting, along with the Sigma 30mm/f1.4. The biggest hole in my lens collection right now is a fast portrait good bokeh prime. The Sigma is cheaper, and I like the slightly longer focal length, but it's also bulkier since it's not truly a native lens, and I suspect its image quality may not be as good. Do you have the Leica, and how is it?
If I'd want it for portratiure I'd probably get the Leica, even if it's more expensive. It's a standard lens which you'll most likely end up using a lot, it's metal and will keep dimensional characteristics in time and with use, the optics are probably some of the best you can get on mFT, bokeh is just wonderful.
I have to show off a puppy portrait from the 75mm. Her name is Brownie, so this is called Pumpkin Brownie:
I mostly do video, but I really love MFT for photos too.
There were considerable difficulties getting a 35mm sensor working in a Leica M camera, due to the light reaching the corners of the sensor at very oblique angles. The M9 used strong offset microlenses on the sensor to fight with that, the more recent CMOS sensors are very "shallow" and thus less sensitive to the light angles. Also, the design of the infrared filter created a lot of problems. The M8 had a to weak one - which resulted in Leica giving free infrared filters for each M8 owner. The M9 one worked, but turned out to be insufficient stable, so many M9s got a free sensor exchange (fortunately free even out of warranty).
With the M(240) and especially the M10 Leica finally seem to have fully succeed in making a true digital M. The M10 is especial, as the body size is finally identical to the film based M cameras, the M8-M(240) were about 3-4 mm thicker.
As far as the Nikon vs Canon thing, I remember a Helmut Newton documentary where a tourist hands him an instamatic camera to take a picture of the tourist with the model. Newton obliges and they show the finished shot. Which looks exactly like a Helmut Newton. It's not the hardware....
If I were to choose today, I'd go with a Sony mirrorless instead since that seems to be where the market is going and Canon/Nikon are slow to catch up to mirrorless cameras. The nicer Sony A series mirrorless cameras are perfect for my use cases (I don't do sports, and generally like low light or underexposing my photos, I'd like to have full frame, and I really prefer something light), whereas fitting these criteria is difficult/not possible with Canon or Nikon, primarily the competing lightness and full frame aspects.
That you can get a Sony a7 for only $800 is likewise amazing. Such stellar image quality for so little bank.
It'll be interesting to see Canon and Nikon enter the mirrorless camera space in earnest. Hmm.
It's interesting that while autofocus is what captured a lot of the market, Canon's current manual-focus lenses are what keep me firmly locked in.
Their TS-E line (tilt/shift) can't autofocus, yet is everything I want and more from photography. They iterate more and have more to offer than Nikon's equivalent lens line, PC-E (perspective control).
I use my phone to take pictures more often than my DSLR, but "DSLR equivalent" or "DSLR quality" are just silly phrases for a phone until they can shift the focal plane or have super telephoto ability.
Lenses like the 35/1.4, 85/1.2, 135/2, TS-E family and others just can't be found else where(although some of the Zeiss stuff comes close).
I've rented it and it's a legitimately an incredible piece of glass(esp considering the problems the 50/1.2L has), I just didn't shoot things enough where I could justify laying out ~$2k for a single lens.
I do however own both the 35/1.4L and 135/2L which are both amazing lenses. The 35L is wide enough to be incredibly versatile and the bokeh rendering is sublime. The 135L has awesome reach and one of the fastest focusing lenses short of the big white L lenses which cost 4-5x. Only the 85/1.2L and 200/2L are better at obliterating backgrounds but they each have their own drawbacks.
I've also rented the 200/2L and that is also amazing(with a pricetag to match at ~$5k) but Nikon has an equivalent so it's not much in the argument of Canon vs Nikon.
Also, the 135 DC looks like it has really poor chroma aberration[1].
[1] https://www.the-digital-picture.com/Reviews/ISO-12233-Sample...
If that was out of focus you'd see a clean transition from black->grey on the edges and a lot more of the detail would be lost.
It can be nice for portraits but in general is a flaw.
Mostly, it's because mirrorless lenses were garbage compared to Canon/Nikon until recently. This is the biggest reason. Sony in in particular has been very aggressive in addressing this issue by releasing native lenses which compete with Canon/Nikon in terms of price and performance at the high end. This wasn't an innovation problem, this was just a matter of Sony catching up to the leading players. When they did this, 3rd party players like Tamron and Sigma responded by producing more mirrorless lenses as the market size grew.
Next was brand value and inertia. Despite those, Sony has gone from a prosumer toy to a serious consideration in the pro space over just a few years. I don't think this shift could have happened much sooner.
Finally, and this only applies to Canon, it's the firmware. Through a series of happy accidents, Cannon cameras ended up with a completely open sourced firmware package called Magic Lantern which unlocks functionality not found in any other cameras - functionality that enables some types of photography that simply weren't accessible without 6 figure budgets before. This hasn't happened in the mirrorless space, so there's a segment of Canon users who are ready to make the jump to Sony but are held back by its comparatively limited stock firmware.
Also, there is one limiting factor on mirrorless cameras that takes away their main advantage at the high end. Professional grade lenses are big and heavy, and mirrorless cameras do nothing to remedy that. It's just a physical limitation of optical systems, the performance of the lens is ultimately dictated by the diameter of the elements. So if you're a pro photographer with his 85mm/f1.4 or 70-200/f2.8 lens, the size of that lens isn't going to change, and it completely dominates the size of the camera body. This takes away one of the main advantages of mirrorless technology in the pro space.
In fact, I added a battery grip to my APS-C body for long days shooting with my 400/f4 to add grip surface & balance the weight. I was getting carpel tunnel before I added the grip.
There is no tech superior to another. Mirrorless requires extensive battery usage for previewing your pictures. A DSLR can take thousands of pictures continuously. That's why the Sony Mirrorless 35mm digital cameras have a some kind of weakness: their autonomy on a single charge is about 300-400 pictures. An equivalent Canon or Nikon DSLR can take easily 1500 pictures on a single charge.
Also, parts of the market aren't buying "a camera", they bought into an ecosystem that's more than just camera tech. Someone in the Nikon or Canon ecosystem (the two only(?) important players that primarily do DSLRs) will stick with that even if they don't do mirrorless versions of their high-end cameras.
E.g. a large part of why Sony is so attractive right now is because their sensors are the best: Canon making a mirrorless isn't going to have that benefit - and if they had the tech, their DSLRs would gain it too.
Being able to reuse existing glass is great (in fact, that's why Canon / Nikon adapters for Sony's mirrorless are so popular), but it always ends up being suboptimal (sure you save some weight on the body, but the lens is still massive).
AFAIK demand for corner-to-corner sharpness wide open has made lenses huge NOT whether there is a mirror or not. I have a bunch of old school Nikon primes that are tiny compared to modern lenses but are essentially "portrait only" lenses until f/4.
The Loxia 21mm/f2.8 is 72 mm long, and 394 g. The Milvus 21mm/f2.8 is 95 mm long, and 735 g (Nikon mount)
Once you go to a higher focal length, keeping the lens compact requires sacrificing something, i.e. slower glass:
The Loxia 35mm/f2 is 59 mm, 340 g. The Milvus 35mm/f1.4 is 125 mm, 1131 g.
The Loxia 85mm/f2.4 is 95 mm, 594 g. The Milvus 85mm/f1.4 is 113 mm, 1210 g.
So, I'd sum it up as, at wider angles, the lens designer probably has a bit more flexibility because of the absence of the mirror box, but at longer focal lengths it matters much less. It's also interesting to me that Zeiss is focusing more on slower lenses that retain the compact form factor. They do have a 35mm 1.4 FE mount, which is huge, and Sigma recently released their FE versions of the Art prime lenses (which are just as big as their SLR equivalents), but the bulk of the Batis and Loxia lineups are f2 and up.
Seems to indicate that while there was indeed a lot of demand for huge, extremely sharp f1.2 or f1.4 lenses in the SLR world, mirrorless customers generally seem OK with trading some of that speed for less weight.
If Canon and Nikon start making full-frame mirrorless cameras, I think we'll start to see a switch, especially if they neglect their SLR bodies and lenses.
I could see silent shooting becoming a requirement in press & some sports, which would essentially accelerate a change to mirrorless in the pro market. Video is another driver for mirrorless, since it can't use the mirror anyway (except in SLT cameras).
The size of mirrorless cameras is only one benefit, and there's no particular reason that a mirrorless camera couldn't have a big Nikon D5 style battery if there was a market for it.
I don't see any particular reason that mirrorless cameras won't completely replace SLRs in time, a mirror is no longer neccessary, like it was for film. No one would make a new SLR system if they were starting now, and they haven't, all the new mounts are mirrorless.
I don't love the menu system either and I really wish they could have figured out a way to get ISO on a top dial.
That said, the X-E3 has a lot of appeal. Especially with its pancake lens, its feel reminds me a lot of various rangefinders I used to use and it's much more responsive than the X-E1 I used to use. I'm less of a fan of the more SLR-looking form factors.
Some random issues of the top of my head..
1) Tiny tolerance/alignment differences between the target mount and adapted mount can cause the lens to become decentered or be mounted at a tiny angle to the sensor plane. 2) special mirrorless camera features might not work as well e.g. eye AF in sony / object tracking / etc 3) possible autofocus hunting issues on outer focus points or autofocus performance will be impacted 4) pro level lenses like the canon 500 F/4 combined with a 1Dx type body unlocks a faster focusing mode which wont be available with an adapted lens.
It is certainly possible to make an accurate mount adapter; see the Pentax m42 → K mount adapter. The "problem" is people don't want to pay for a good one; the Pentax adapter costs about 2x as much as the adapters everyone seems to buy.
They'll misbehave with certain lenses, or the autofocus performance will be poor, or...
Sort of like console emulators.
That seems to be less of a problem with modern sensors so it may become a non-issue as time goes by.
Are they superior for the same price?
I care very much for low light and high ISO performance. I get darn good performance with my Pentax ($500-1000 body). When I checked 2 years ago, the only mirrorless cameras that came close cost over $2000.
Mirrorless cameras have reached the point in their development where their increased simplicity is winning out in terms of providing quality for the money. A mirrorless camera is really simple; there's one moving part (the shutter), and everything else is stationary sensors and screens. It thus benefits well from the exponential nature of silicon development. DSLRs, by contrast, are more complicated and have more moving parts, and we've reached the inflection point where mirrorless cameras are winning out at the same price point thanks to the simplicity of manufacturing they enable.
And hell, all mirrorless cameras have an electronic shutter feature too (for silent shots), so they can get away with zero moving parts in most situations. A DSLR has always got a mirror to move at the minimum.
It has not yet been released. I'll await reviews comparing it with, say, the Pentax K-1 Mark II.
My question: Is any Sony camera that is similarly priced to the 2016 Pentax K-1 better performing (mostly in terms of noise)?
(The amusing thing is that my older APS-C Pentax uses the same sensor as some of the Sony cameras - yet Pentax had lower noise).
I know very little about cameras, so this might be a question with an obvious answer, but is there a reason why a DSLR camera could not operate in a "mirrorless" mode as well? i.e. retract the mirror (thereby disabling the optical viewfinder) and use the sensor to show a digital viewfinder?
My 42MP A7Rii runs $2300 new compared to the Canon 5DS which is $3800. Same thing when I bought my Sony A6000 and original A7.
The battery life problem is being solved. The Sony A7 III, which just came out, does much better on battery life. And personally I have an Olympus OM-D E-M5 II, use the viewfinder almost exclusively, and have never run out of battery, even after a full day of touristing. I have four spares I've never had to swap in. I'm not a professional though.
I'm going to have to disagree with you there. A 0 latency view of exactly what your composition will look like is what I need.
> It often doesn't give a great representation of the actual digital image
In auto modes your camera is clever enough to take a "good" exposure. In manual mode you should know how to expose a photo properly.
> requires bulk for the mirror
The mirror is a small part of the weight / size of a camera. The main disadvantage of an SLR always has been and always will be the flange focal distance.
> the mirror itself is loud and doesn't permit using the viewfinder while taking video.
Agreed
> you can't overlay nearly asuch information on the viewfinder.
Good! I want less information in my way, not more.
> The battery life problem is being solved.
Maybe, but the reality is still that even the A7 III has only half the battery life of a comparable DSLR. That is a problem for heavy shooting.
All of my Nikon DSLRs (D5000, D7000, D750) can shoot between 2-4k images on a charge, and I use a mix of official Nikon batteries and cheap eBay knock-offs. In general the cheap knock-offs perform better. If I had to change batteries every 500-600 photos, I would be constantly stressed during a job and probably flip batteries every time I had a minute free. If that's not enough juice for a photographer, the battery grip will get that number much higher (and provide stability when using heavier lenses).
Mirrorless cameras of course couldn't use that separate module, so they used "contrast autofocus" where the camera moves the lens and with the image sensor watch the contrast of the picture improve until focus is achieved. Initially this was very slow. But in the meantime, sensor readout and signal processing got much faster and lenses have been constructed, which can change their focus position much faster than traditional autofocus lenses. As a consequence, a good contrast auto focus is a fast or faster as a decent phase auto focus. More recently, phase detection systems were integrated into the sensors, giving the mirrorless cameras the best of two worlds.
Sony and Fuji are making great strides, but Canon and Nikon have had decades to perfect their systems. And while mirrorless manufacturers are investing very heavily, Canon and Nikon have really only been putting out fairly iterative updates (especially Canon).
For me personally I had nowhere near that much money invested in Canon glass, so switching to Sony wasn't as painful (I pre-ordered the Sony A7iii but haven't received it yet).
Given that the $2000 Sony is out-reviewing the $3500 Canon 5D markIV, it's getting a lot of attention and I'm hardly the only one jumping ship. I think it's safe to assume that Canon/Nikon will respond with pro level mirrorless cameras as soon as they're able to.
SLRs don't have the latency that mirrorless cameras have, which is important for sports & journalism. If you're shooting still-life, then mirrorless is probably fine.
SLRs also have better phase-detect AF sensors available to them. Mirrorless phase-detect sensors are primitive, and eat up image sensor area, so they can't be as sensitive.
Also, mirrorless eats up batteries, since you now have to power the sensor and viewfinder full-time.
Really, companies need to stop making mirrorless cameras, since they're not useful. I don't know why anyone would buy them.
Plus the removal of flappy mechanical bits improves reliability and offers even faster frame rates.
There's a Canon full-frame mirrorleas prototype in the hands of their "Explorers of Light" now, so expect a big advertising push next year.
Of course the keeper-rate drops dramatically in direct relation with shutter speed but that's the beauty of digital. Even one out of 20 keeps me happy and the rest go to the bitbucket.
At present I have to restrict my camera to about 5fps when panning at 1/60 and even slower when at 1/30; if non-slappy mirrorless boosts that two or threefold I'll be delighted.
Here are a few I can think of.
- Less moving parts, so increased reliability.
- Possibility of faster shutter time (assuming the autofocus issues with mirrorless can be resolved).
- No high precision SLR mechanism means more engineering budget to spend on better sensors, etc. Thus producing a better camera at the same price.
- Viewfinder shows a truer representation of the final image since it's reading from the same data as what will ultimately be captured.
- using image processing for focus rather than finicky focus sensors which only cover a small part of the image (and having to tune your lenses...)
I’ve been on the fence of getting the latest Nikon 850 or waiting to see if Nikon announces a full frame mirrorless compatible with DSLR lenses someday... I saw a rumor they may announce some kind of mirrorless this year.
I use Nikon and haven't heard of a mirror failing on its own. Ever! Dead cameras due to some electronic part that got wet or desoldered OTOH...
> No high precision SLR mechanism means more engineering budget to spend on better sensors, etc
I don't think the way the reflex mirror works has changed for ~50 years.
True, but integration of a complex mechanism still adds complexity, even if the mechanism itself has already been designed.
They sell, so they appear to be useful to people. Just maybe not to you.
Mirrorless cameras are a good option for a lot of photography enthusiasts who like to travel light but also benefit from the advantages of interchangeable lenses. They wouldn't sell so well if people didn't find them useful.
Comparing the F-1 to the Nikon F by comparing pictures of how big the system looks? That's the most idiotic camera comparison i've ever seen!!
The story of Canon vs Nikon is very long, starts in the mid-50s, and in truth is a three-actors story: It is really the story of Asahi Optical (Pentax) vs Nikon vs Canon. For Canon was the direct competition to Nikon in the rangefinder era (1950s-early 1960s), and Nikon was direct competition to the established Pentax in the SLR era. For most of the early 60s, photojournalists either preferred the Nikon F (the "system") or the Pentax (spotmatic and early models).
Basically, Nikon(Nippon Kogaku) was an optical manufacturer and Canon was a small shop which did the big feat of building the first japanese 35mm camera. So this first camera was first sold with Nikon lenses, since Canon(Kwanon) didn't manufacture lenses.
Then, all through the 50s, Nikon brought a series of very sophisticated rangefinder cameras (& lenses) and Canon brought some very high quality rangefinder lenses. The two rangefinder systems were already competing (!)
Canon, in the early 60s, considered rangefinders the better system and didn't think SLR cameras were to be strong competition, that's why in 1959 they released a half-baked effort at a SLR, the Canonflex, just to have something to show off when the Nikon F was released. The Canonflex wasn't even released with a wide angle lens, which shows how little commitment Canon had to SLR cameras.
Meanwhile in the early 60s, Asahi Optical (Pentax) already had very refined SLR cameras and a whole array of SLR lenses. The first japanese wideangle lens for a SLR was released by Asahi, not Canon nor Nikon.
The Nikon F was the first japanese SLR "system" camera and this head-start made them get more customers than any competitor (save Pentax). The 1971 Canon F-1 camera was the culmination of an attempt that started by Canon in the mid-60s to create a SLR that competed frontally with Nikon. This attempt started first by Canon massively increasing the R&D in camera lenses, culminating in a series of many "firsts" in japanese optics (during the 1965-71 period). Part of this long-term strategy was creating lenses of state-of-the-art performance, which often beat the (then current) Nikkor lenses at magazine reviews. An example is the Canon FL 19/3.5R (1965) which was thoroughly superior to the Nikon offering, another example was the FL-F fluorite telephoto lenses (1968). Another example was the FL 55/1.2 aspheric, the first production standard lens with aspheric surfaces. This was obviously a preparation for the release of the F-1 camera.
The F-1 camera was thoroughly superior to the Nikon F and a formidable rival of the (introduced in 1971 as well) Nikon F2. It got accepted and used by professionals, however Nikon had entered that market first. Even today the high value of the F-1 in the used market is an indication of the esteem this camera is held by the collectors.
The New F-1 camera (1981) was the direct competitor of the Nikon F3 as well, but that's another story!!
I've some old Canon film gears: a Canonet and Canon P. All of my film SLRs are Nikons and Minoltas.
Let me see this F-1 fellow :)
* In the "System Compatibility" section, this talks about how Canon threw out backward compatibility in 1987 (to the chagrin of existing customers), but gained an all-electronic lens mount that eased future expansion and achieved better compatibility in the long run: https://kenrockwell.com/tech/nikon-vs-canon.htm#comp
* In the "Introduction" section, this talks about how autofocus was superior on the early Canon products than the early Nikon products: https://kenrockwell.com/tech/nikon-vs-canon.htm
* Nikon's insanely complicated matrix of body-lens compatibility: https://kenrockwell.com/nikon/compatibility-lens.htm . Whereas on Canon, simply "if it fits, it works".
1: Variety of lenses. When I was into photography ~10 years ago, you could buy 4 different Canon 70-200mm lenses; an F4, F4 w/ image stabilisation, an F2.8, and an F2.8 w/image stabilisation. This meant that they had a great bit of glass within multiple different price ranges, and it made it much easier to get into their ecosystem.
2: The menu system on Canon cameras is really logical, for me. Nikon menus have always confused the hell out of me.
Their Depth from Defocus and subject tracking technology is also pretty astounding (certainly for stills, though GH users might grumble about focus 'wobble') and shows that they're a technology company in the camera space and can leverage that to make their cameras do things that classical camera companies have difficulty grasping or rely on costly hardware solutions to overcome.
I know people give Ken Rockwell a lot of shit, and often with reason, but he's so so right that those are a game changer. I don't have to think, I can just move to "U1" or "U2" for my most common shooting scenarios and I'm done. There's also the customizable "Fn" button that gives quick access to a custom menu. Nikon cameras that feature this have easily the best UI in the industry.
Nikon only has had it on their midrange models starting with the D7000. The D6x0 and D750 have it, but the full pro style cameras don't have it.
I don't really use them except for having a 'basic' setup that reenables focus by half pressing the shutter button in case I hand my camera to someone who doesn't use back button focus.
Even in a studio you can feel it later on when you've been pointing it around all day!
But, there are also cameras in your suggested price range that aren't DSLRs that fit the bill, probably better than a DSLR for the casual camera user. A lot of the smart tech in DSLR cameras has trickled down into point and shoot cameras, including good autofocus, white balance, etc. Lens technology has moved more slowly, but the digital part of cameras has been advancing extremely rapidly.