- 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.
- 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).
I'm pretty sure that Magic Lantern is also selling a lot of Canons - the 5D MkII shoots decent video, but is locked down by Canon. When you put ML on though, you can shoot 14-bit uncompressed video, which is usually only available in cameras costing considerably more than a MkII.
> 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.
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.
Today, though, Canon has shifted from innovation to rent-extraction.
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.
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.
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.
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)
Minor technicality: AF Sensors are in the Bottom of the camera in DSLRs.
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.
Yes. I should not have left out image stabilization which would have been even more beneficial to film :-)
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.
And both seem to be completely missing the smartphone revolution.
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.
Different market. You could say they missed the market on medium and large format cameras until you realize they were in the 35mm camera market. Different optics and recording medium size compared to smart phones.
I don't think that smartphones have wiped out the amateur market for DSLRs. If anything, it's increased the market.
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.
I wonder, do you look at your photos on a computer afterwards or just your phone? I've found that photos I shoot with my Pixel look amazing on the device, but when I take them back to my computer (a retina laptop) the flaws become really noticeable. I'm talking about things like small amounts of motion blur or the focus not being quite perfect, or increased grain from the sensor size and ISO setting, etc., leading to an image that is just not as crisp as what I'd get on a real camera. But the flaws are easy to ignore on a small display and I suspect many people (not necessarily you) find them good enough as a result.
"but when I take them back to my computer (a retina laptop) the flaws become really noticeable."
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.
No, the size of the sensor has nothing to do with the light exposure.
The amount of light captured is determined by the lens aperture and the photosensitive element size.
The problem with small sensors is that their pixel density is much higher and this increases the noise.
Also to have the same resolution a bigger sensor can use bigger pixel and that increases the amount of light captured by the single element.
For example a full frame sensor with 12MP has a better signal to noise ratio than a 48MP one.
If you use a sensor that is 4 times smaller then if you want to maintain the same resolution the signal to noise ratio is much smaller, if you want to maintain the same low light performance then your resolution will be 4 times smaller.
Just think about a full frame sensor, if you crop the image in the center the final result will be exactly the same as an image captured with a smaller sensor with the same pixel density.
I don't think thats true. You need to calculate equivalent f-stop for smaller sized sensors to compare the captured light. The f stop mentioned on the smartphone relates to the physical focal length while the 35mm-equivalent focal length is adjusted by the crop factor. As a result the sensor actually covers a small part of the area that could theoretically be lit with such a short focal length (light falling in from the side at large angles).
There is no equivalent f/stop.
There is an equivalent focal length but as I explained it has nothing to do with the amount of light captured by the photovoltaic elements.
The equivalent focal length is used only to infer the field of view.
Imagine a 14mm 2.8 on full frame - that's a very wide angle. Of course a 14mm 2.8 on a mobile phone size sensor will not be used a wide angle, as the senor will only cover a tiny amount of the arc behind the lens. While the two lenses theoretically "transport" the same amount of light, the sensor of the smart phone only sees a tiny amount of it in the center of the theoretical image circle. In practical terms of course the smaller-sensor lens will already be constructed to only have a very small image circle and therefore let through nowhere near as much light as the lens constructed for a larger sensor.
That's why it makes sense to consider equivalent f-stops for calculations of light amount passing to the sensor, it also has its place in calculation of DOF.
Interesting, I took a totally different perspective - as easy as it is to take a picture with my pixel 2, I get almost no satisfaction from it. No fun of choosing a good fstop, framing the shot, etc. Editing it later in Lightroom...
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.
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.
I still shoot with interchangeable lens cameras (both Fujifilm and Canon) but I do use my iPhone more and more of the time. On a recent trip to Europe, I had both my Fujifilm with a couple of lenses and my iPhone X. Looking through my photos on Flickr, there are some that I obviously took with the XE-3 given the low light conditions. But for many of the rest of my edited/curated photos, I couldn't have told you which camera I used without looking at the metadata. Probably if I blew things up big enough and really examined the fine detail, but not with casual viewing at normal sizes.
I prefer the careful manual selection of the shooting parameters and lens of a DSLR over my iPhone much like I prefer driving a stick shift over an automatic.
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.
... the best camera is the one you have with you. I love my DSLR but now the multi-lens systems (iPhone X and others) that allow bokeh make it even less compelling to bring my DSLR. If they had a stronger telephoto option, it’d be a done deal for me unless I was shooting professionally again. Sure, I love the control of an SLR but I love always having a good camera with me even more.
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.
I had never heard of the Light camera, that thing is crazy! Makes sense that it's 2k, I'm loving to see if anybody else tries to take a crack at this unorthodox system.
One thing about Nikon is that they've always used a more advanced process technology in its same generation camera compared to Canon. If Canon used .5um, Nikon would use .35um, for example. This always helped with the ISO sensitivity & dynamic range of Nikon's sensors, which were always less noisy than Canon's. The Nikon D3 changed everything, for example, by allowing impossible shots at sensitivities previously unheard of.
Can I just say that what I really want is a mirrorless that is shaped more like a pistol than a traditional camera?
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.
>Can I just say that what I really want is a mirrorless that is shaped more like a pistol than a traditional camera?
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.
A pistol grip is more comfortable and more stable to me, so, that is my evidence. I was actually thinking of the RC car controllers or power tools. Your hand is strong in that configuration vs a standard camera.
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.
>I was actually thinking of the RC car controllers or power tools. Your hand is strong in that configuration vs a standard camera.
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.
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.
You can trigger shutter via headphone button, so there's a way to also trigger a flash... would just be complicated. Or use slaves to detect the phone's built in flash, but cover it to dim the light. Then your off camera flashes will overpower the phone's flash.
Photographers already have enough problems being mistaken for gunmen [1][2] without cameras actually looking like guns.
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.
People who come from DSLRs and then whine about Sony ergonomics should give film cameras a fair shake. I think it's a familiarity thing, and most people shoot zooms from what I've seen. After shooting film cameras predominantly for over a year, my transition to a Sony a7 has been amazing. It's so tiny that it fits in my jacket chest pocket. Small camera means I have it with me more often and can take more photos. In terms of size and balance, I find it similar to my film kits.
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.
I have only 3 lenses: 14mm Rokinon, 40mm canon pancake, and a Canon 70-200L II. I used to have a 24-70 gen 1, but sold it because it couldn't keep up with the 5DSr sensor. I always meant to replace it, but I never bothered. I would love to have the canon 11-24, but I'm only really interested in the 11mm end. I wish they just had a smaller, lighter, cheaper 11mm rectilinear.
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.
In my eyes, over the decades both companies kept leapfrogging over each other. With the T90, Canon probably made the most advanced non-AF SLR, only to abandon the FD-mount. This was a very costy change, which paid of later on, as it allowed Canon to start over without any legacy. Early on, Nikon had the lead in DSLRs, but Canon was the first with a 35mm DSLR. Nikon took a long time to go 35mm, but the D800 and D810 was a big step ahead with its 36mp sensor, only very recently Canon exceeded that with ther 50mp version of the 5D.
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.
Yeah, Sony is proving to be dangerous. Awesome sensor tech, and lenses that can compete with the high-end of Canon/Nikon's ranges (and Tamron is getting there too), at a point where lens quality really matters if you want to be able to use the pixel density.
> at a point where lens quality really matters if you want to be able to use the pixel density.
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.
Wider aperture means bigger lens, especially zoom. This can be a negative for the non-professional who wants to minimize size/weight when travelling or just walking around town, especially if they already have a smaller, mirrorless body. Professionals, obviously, will use whatever size equipment they need to get the job done.
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.
In my experience, wider aperture often means slower focusing. The focus motor has to move a much larger piece of glass and focus with an even narrower depth of field.
That's usually the opposite case, wider apertures mean more light which gives the AF system more to work with. The AF speed of my 135L drops significantly if I put a 1.4x teleconverter on it despite needing to move the same amount of glass.
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).
-They make lenses for the H system (oh, and XPan - in that case, I believe they made the camera, too). The V system (what pops into most people’s minds when ‘Hasselblad’ is mentioned) was largely supplied with Carl Zeiss lenses.
For those of us who are only half paying attention, why is mirrorless an inevitable step?
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.
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.
That's not because of the cameras being mirrorless; it's because (for Canon anyway) they purposely gimp video on their DSLRs to get you to buy their Cine-EOS cameras.
Strides which do not result from them being mirrorless.
You should understand that the mirror does not get involved at all when doing video with a DSLR.
So, all of these 'strides' can and have been replicated in the next version of the cameras.
I'm not sure what your point is - it's mirrorless that have really pushed the tech on here at least at the cheaper end of the market. It's my understanding that Lumix G range for example has been widely adopted for video in a way that SLR has not. Are you saying these users will defect to SLR with a new generation? Can't really see why, since all that going SLR would do is introduce some extra mechanics they don't need.
DSLR/Mirrorless is unrelated to sensor size. Sony makes 35mm mirrorless cameras with great sensors, just like more or less everyone making DSLRs also makes some with sensors smaller than 35mm size.
In the Four Thirds, later Micro Four Thirds, world, Olympus and Panasonic played out some of the familiar tropes between these two corporations -- except they (Oly & Pana) had already agreed on the sensor size and lens mount electronics... so it was much less risky or painful to commit to one over the other.
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.
The article is still quite valid. The sensor prices might have come down a bit further than expected, but a full frame camera still carries a substantial premium, especially when compared to µFT. But more important than the sensor prices are the consequences for the lenses, if you compare the sensor formats. The camera companies have solved the problems with vignetting and soft corners by designing a whole set of new lenses[1]. So a 35mm sensor performs nicely with modern lenses, but those lenses are quite expensive and most importantly, vastly bigger and heavier than their ancestors. So while a 35mm system might provide the maximum quality, for anyone with a budget, both financially and transportation-wise, the µFT system is more in the spirit of analog 35mm format, both size and performance wise, while the digital 35mm cameras drift more into the classic medium format field, in performance but importantly also price and size wise.
[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.
I used to dismiss Leica M as photo gear for Magnum photographers and rich snobs, but then they began manufacturing excellent lenses for the µFT system at more acceptable prices. If an M Summicron is 3.3k, the equivalent µFT lens costs $500 - less than the Zeiss Tuit Sony E lenses, which got not so great reviews.
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.
The M8 was an anomaly more than anything else, and probably used an APS-H sensor because Leica couldn't get a 24x36 sensor from anyone. It was a flawed camera in many ways, and they went back to 35mm as soon as they could get a sensor that size on the M9 (from Kodak iirc).
Actually, both the M8 and the M9 use a Kodak sensor. They are even using the same sensor design, the M9 just having proportionally more pixels according the larger sensor area. But the individual pixel design is the same in both sensors (it is also the same sensor design used in the first FT-camera, the Olympus E-1, there of course only featuring 4.9 megapixels, due to the smaller sensor size).
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.
There is a sales and marketing side to this story as well. Switching costs in photography are quite high if you are invested in a system. Changing systems means selling every lens you own at a greatly depreciated price and purchasing new equivalents at full price. Canon wanted the pro sports market and Nikon was deeply entrenched. 300mm, 400mm, and 600mm lenses that are der rigeur for the sports pro (plus a few others like the 70-200mm) are far more expensive than camera bodies. Canon heavily subsidized the switching costs for key influential pros to get the ball rolling. These incentives were strategically timed to coincide with some of the innovations mentioned in the article. Had they not primed the pump and switched all there big teles to putty gray the battle would have been much tougher.
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....
I'm not sure how true this now, but a few years ago the idea was that in general Canon had the edge (and it does have the marketshare) but Nikon was better at low-light, non sports, and had somewhat better quality for the price, whereas Canon was better as sports, video, and had a larger range of lenses. This is why I chose a Nikon D7000 about 7 years ago. If I knew what I knew about my preferences now, back then, I would have gone with something lighter and smaller, like a Pentax or Olympus.
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.
I just bought an A6000 mirrorless camera and love it! I’ve had it for a couple of weeks and so far it’s been great. Low light shooting is excellent and 1080p 60FPS video is nice. I don’t care for the integrated WiFi so don’t use it.
I bought a NEX-6 for ~$450 4 years ago and am shocked at the total lack of improvement at that price bracket since then. Of course this was right after the price dropped in response to the A6000. The A6000 is definitely nice but actually has a few regressions compared to the NEX-6, with a lower-resolution viewfinder and losing the electronic level.
Ease of use is what hooked me in the early 2000s with the Rebel, so I stayed with it during the switch to digital SLR a few years later.
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.
I've heard similar comments about the 1.2 stop lenses before, but not one person making them ever used them when they said it. In these cases it is probably the "high end bias" at work: X makes a very good premium Y, therefore I assume their low/mid-range Z is good as well. We see this frequently with CPUs and GPUs: X has the performance crown, therefore for performance, buy X, regardless of price segment.
So the 85/1.2L is somewhat of a specialty lens(much like the TS-E series) you'll find it's more used for portraits and the like.
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.
I don't quite see the special thing about the 135, though? Nikon has had excellent lenses in that range for a long time (105/2.5, the AF 105/2 and 135/2), I think almost every lens maker does.
No, that's chroma aberration(of which longitudinal is a type), the Canon 100/2 exhibits the exact same purple fringing on high contrast areas. I know because it's what I moved from when I got my 135L.
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.
I worked for a small photography studio way early in my career. The studio owner was definitely a Canon guy. I guess he was on the right track, heh. He lauded the variety of their lenses for many things.
This is mostly unrelated, but I've had a longstanding question about the camera industry and maybe someone here will know the answer. Why do we keep investing in DSLR technology when mirrorless is obviously superior? Is it just a matter of professional photographers being hung up on old technology?
There's a few reasons, but they're all becoming irrelevant. I'm going to focus on Sony as the exemplar mirrorless player because I'm most familiar with them.
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.
Professional grade lenses are big and heavy, and mirrorless cameras do nothing to remedy that.
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.
Not even garbage necessarily, just a limited choice in lenses. The mirrorless lenses are being made by the same high quality established companies as the DSLR lenses, they just have fewer choices. To take MFT as an example, which is the biggest mirrorless lens mount by far, it has lenses by several different manufacturers but still doesn't have the same variety available of either the Canon or Nikon full-frame DSLR mounts. Here's the MFT lenses: http://www.four-thirds.org/en/microft/lens_chart.html
> DSLR technology when mirrorless is obviously superior
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.
This used to be true but the latest generation of mirrorless are competing well on the battery front. Flapping a mirror around vs EVF, while I wouldn't want to give up my optical viewfinder just yet I think it's only a matter of time until they become niche.
Because at the current time, mirrorless isn't entirely "obviously superior". It's been rapidly improving and gaining market share (for good reasons), but there's valid reasons to still have DSLRs too.
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.
The argument over DSLRs and mirrorless remind me of the endless SLR vs rangefinder debates among film users. Each side touts various advantages that exist more in their own minds than in the actual cameras.
As there are more and more rumors about Nikon and Canon finally intoducing professional mirrorless cameras, they certainly would also support all their current lens systems.
Sure. But they might be making the jump now, when they can be very competitive with the DSLRs, instead of earlier, when it would have been a "why bother buying a worse product?" offering. (+ of course likely some amount of corporate inertia)
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.
The sensor is just one thing. There are numerous categories of lenses where the Sony offering is either inexistent or completely overpriced vs what Canon or Nikon offers. Sony cannot win just everywhere, at least right now.
Hopefully they also take advantage of the shorter flange distance of mirrorless, to redesign their lenses to be more compact 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).
Do you have some examples of lenses with comparable optical properties that are smaller in mirrorless mounts?
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.
I think the Zeiss Loxia (mirrorless) and Milvus (SLR) lines are an interesting comparison point, since they're both from the same manufacturer, both manual focus, and should both be comparable quality.
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.
Mostly yes, people are locked into their brand through the lens mount and it's pretty expensive to switch. In some ways mirrorless hasn't been considered as good as SLR, with focusing and battery life, though this has been improved a lot recently. Some others still talk about weather sealing, which Sony seems to be lacking - but this is not a inherent flaw in mirrorless systems, but a choice by Sony.
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).
I really like the Fujifilm X-Ex line in particular and use it more than my Canon 5Diii. (I mostly use the latter for action or if I need very tele or very wide angle lenses.) But the mirrorless lines are definitely sort of a niche. A lot of the potential customers are pretty locked into Canon or Nikon glass. Furthermore, for a lot of people, mirrorless doesn't fully replace DSLRs--though it increasingly can for many types of shooting. So you're left with expensive camera lines that aren't quite as versatile as a DSLR although they're significantly lighter and smaller.
Sony's make mirrorless full-frame, they already able to replace SLRs for many photographers. It's not a trade off as you suggest, because Sony image quality is rated as one of the best, if not the best in the full-frame market. The new "iii" series cameras have much longer battery life than before.
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 recently went from a Nikon D7000 to a Fuji X-T2. I've gotten used to the EVF (quite low latency, but crappy dynamic range), but the main annoyance is poor battery life, unless you're willing to have the additional grip attached 24/7, which sorta defeats the purpose of having a smaller mirrorless body. Also, the menu system is completely unintuitive.
I can't say I've had a particular issue with the X-E3's battery life even when using it to shoot lots of pics at an event. I do carry spare batteries but I can usually get through a day of hundreds of photos on just one.
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.
ISO is bound to the front wheel under your pointer finger, press it in to select ISO mode. Have the back wheel on mine bound to shutter speed (top dial set to 'T') and the top function button to switch between the electronic and mechanical shutter. White balance is the only thing that seems a bit out of reach.
A lot of it is due to lenses. Lenses contribute at least as much to image quality as camera bodies. Pros will often have tens if not hundreds of thousands of dollars invested in lenses, and glass doesn't go obsolete. But SLR lenses are only compatible with other SLRs with the same mount. So switching to mirrorless isn't just a matter of buying a Sony body instead of a Canon body the next time you want to upgrade. It's also a matter of replacing thousands and thousands of dollars of glass (and that's assuming there are equivalent replacements, which isn't always the case).
It is possible, but SLRs have a bigger flange distance to the sensor, because a mirror has to fit between the lens and the sensor. To be able to use SLR lenses with mirrorless cameras, the mirrorless camera needs to have the same flange distance as the SLR, which would make the camera body bigger. This kills one of the main mirrorless features.
While you can easily add the adapter, you are using the lens in a way it is not designed for. It will work for various definitions of work, and casual users might never even notice the difference. But it will never be equivalent to its native usecase.
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.
> 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.
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.
I have had mixed results with the Sigma MC-11 adapter. Some lenses worked OK, and some didn't. I don't have the setup or the resources to do a thorough analysis. I attributed them to the 'slop' in the system - From the focus motor to the mount to the adapter to the AF system and sensor. I was probably unlucky and the +/- tolerances didn't cancel each other out.
It is, but lens mounts are largely proprietary and SLR lenses are big. Some wide angle lenses are also heavily corrected in order to accomodate a swinging mirror. Even if you can fit them with an adapter that retains most features, you wouldn't want to lug around a heavier lens, when you could just sell it and buy the native equivalent, which in some cases even performs better due to physics. There is no point in using a SLR mount for mirrorless as it's oversized and will negate the cost and size advantages of shorter flange to sensor mirrorless designs.
For specialty lenses of various kinds, some people find it makes sense. But in general, as you say, there are compromises in using adapters in terms of function, size, etc. and usually it makes more sense to sell the existing lens and buy a native one.
It is possible since 2012 with the https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canon_EOS_M . There is a first-party EF/EF-S to EF-M adapter, and all Canon DSLR lenses work on the EOS M series of cameras with full functionality (aperture, focus, IS, etc.) and zero caveats. I'm not sure what motivated your question.
One reason is that with a mirrorless camera you have to have the sensor powered all the time. That means background heat in the sensor which traditionally been a source of noise. With a DSLR you only have to have the sensor on to capture your final image.
That seems to be less of a problem with modern sensors so it may become a non-issue as time goes by.
>Why do we keep investing in DSLR technology when mirrorless is obviously superior?
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.
It's changed a lot. Check out the Sony mirrorless cameras now. The A7 III which just came out is amazing, and dominates any of the DSLR competition at the same price point.
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.
> A DSLR has always got a mirror to move at the minimum.
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?
So there's a complete optical path from the lens to the viewfinder. Even if you retract the mirror, you still need to then insert an electronic viewfinder into the path somewhere that displays what the sensor is receiving. You could probably design something using a prism as film movie cameras have done in the past but it would be complicated and have its own set of compromises. Not a lot of reason to do it.
Part of it is development priorities. You can't launch a brand new system and hope to immediately take on the whole existing DSLR ecosystem, so mirrorless started out inhabiting the niches that weren't so well served by DSLRs, because within those niches (at least) some people will be willing to overlook the shortcomings. And then you can build on that, and produce newer models with fewer shortcomings, and maybe start to capture a bigger market.
The optical viewfinder is the main negative of the SLR, and what is motivating the shift to mirrorless. It often doesn't give a great representation of the actual digital image that will be captured, it requires bulk for the mirror, and you can't overlay nearly asuch information on the viewfinder. Plus the mirror itself is loud and doesn't permit using the viewfinder while taking video.
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.
> The optical viewfinder is the main negative of the SLR
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.
"The a7 III uses the Z battery, introduced in the a9 and also used by the a7R III. It's good for 710 shot per CIPA ratings with the a7 III, as its power requirements are less than the a9 or a7R III, both rated for 650 images per charge."
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).
There are some fundamental differences, which meant that initially mirrorless cameras were at a disadvantage, but that has started to turn into an advantage these days.
Autofocus SLRs, digital or analog always focus via phase detection. This was done with a separate sensor module behind the main mirror, which has some transparency. This system can not only detect the exact focus, but also how far the camera is out of focus. This allows the cameras to directly tell the lens where to go in one big step, so focus this way is very fast.
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.
When digital became a reality, it also took plenty time to displace film. When I bought my first digital camera (a Canon D30), it had many drawbacks compared to the top-of-the-line 35mm film cameras of the time. A measly 3 MP resolution, a confusing crop factor (b/c the sensor wasn't truly 35mm), not great battery life, limited low-light performance. Yet it was clear digital was the future.
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).
Professional photographers often have $10k+ invested in lenses so switching systems isn't something they'd be likely to do for an incremental upgrade. Some have switched to the Sony A9 though.
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.
It's because SLRs are superior to mirrorless, since there are no advantages of a mirrorless camera over SLR tech.
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.
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.
- Smaller body due to smaller mechanical footprint
- 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.
Furthermore (sorry, can't edit my post): A mirrorless camera would require strictly less electronic parts than a DSLR. So your experience with electronics failures supports the idea that a mirrorless design could be more reliable.
Not everyone is a photojournalist, so why should they lug the bulky SLR bodies and lenses around? And not every amateur photographer is happy with a point-and-shoot camera or a phone camera.
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.
imo Canon created and then heavy push into a digital prosumer market. The Canon 300D Kit was priced perfectly to capture mid-market, many in that mid-market went on to become the pro market. My college cohort was the first through the newly created “Digital Imaging and Technology” program(at art school in canada), by the time we graduated (2006), most people had switched to Canon because the CA / Lens Sharpness / AF became demonstratively better. From there it was a natural path to follow 30D > 5D > 5DmkII. Additionally, the Canon prime lineup at the time was fantastic.
As a camera nerd owner of many of the cameras mentioned in the article: Canon F-1, New F-1; Nikon F, F2, and F3, plus some Canon EOS cameras, I can plainly say this article is ill-researched and downright silly in places. It thoroughly ignores a big part of the Canon-Nikon war, which started even before the Nikon F was introduced(1959), and attributes -like a fanboy- inventions like "electronic metering" or "Autofocus" to Nikon, where the truth is that neither Nikon nor Canon were involved in inventing such stuff.
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'm supposing that this comes up in the context of people complaining about Apple. It's interesting to see an example of a company which basically chained itself to backwards compatibility and a sort of focus-group dedication to what "pro" users wanted, and ended up losing the "pro" market as a result (to a company that willfully broke compatibility and developed something nobody seemed to be asking for).
Part of the problem for Nikon was that their old lenses were built to last forever, so they did. I just got a new Nikon DSLR, and I've had Nikons since the 1970s. So The fact that I can grab my AI-S lenses (but sadly not the even older pre-AI lenses) and go out and shoot is cool. And I've never felt drawn to Canon. A while ago I did acquire a Hasselblad, but that's a different story entirely.
I've wondered for a while if we worry too much about backwards compatibility, it must be a huge burden for companies like Microsoft to deal with. Meanwhile Apple seems to almost relish breaking old API's with each new release of macOS and it doesn't seem to hurt them.
With cameras of course lack of backwards compatibility means breaking compatiblity with existing lenses. A complete "pro" set of lenses is worth thousands if not tens of thousands. So this is a step to be taken carefully. When Canon retired the FD system, a lot of people were unhappy, certainly hurting Canons business at that time (incidentally, that caused me to swith from Canon FD to Nikon F when getting my first AF-SLR). In the long time, that big step has paid off for Canon.
There's room for different approaches. Part of the reasons why Microsoft's biggest customers are so is because they value that backwards compatibility. And it's also the reason why they're probably not big Apple customers. (Except of course for ubiquitous management iPhone.)
The history of Nikon vs. Canon reminds me of the following stories.
* 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
My dad always shot Nikon (until recently when he picked up a smaller Fuji thing), but I personally have always preferred Canon for two reasons:
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.
It’s astounding to me how bad the menu systems are for most cameras. It’s a common negative quality I see in reviews for Nikon, Sony. Samsung, Olympus, and Panasonic. I haven’t read any Canon reviews so I’ll have to take your word for it that they’re an outlier.
As someone with Canon, Nikon, Panasonic and Pentax cameras I'd say Panasonic have the best menus out there. Their app for remotely controlling cameras is also excellent. Panasonic really seems to understand software and interface design.
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.
Does Canon do the "U" modes like some Nikon cameras?
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.
Canon came up with that first with the 5D back in 2005, and it came to the semipro lineup with the 40D, and the full pro with the 1Dx. Currently, everything from the 80D and up has this.
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.
Not familiar with Nikon but it sounds like this is the custom settings mode. This exist in the Canon world as Custom shooting mode. My very old 40D has C1/C2/C3 which are exactly for this. I agree theyre extremely useful as I stay on these mode 90%+ of the time.
Nikon pro bodies don't have a custom setting selector on the top but has five 'profiles' that you can select using the i button, each bank contains a full config.
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.
I agree with those two reasons, and add a third: I've got smallish hands for a man, and the canon-bodies always felt better suited to me for that reason.
Its kinda like battling about who's best as the whole boat sinks. Its rare to see a compact camera these days and SLRs are slowly disappearing too. I know I've stopped using mine. There will always be pros and some enthusiasts, but I can only see pain for these companies Canon & Nikon will probably limp along but Pentax, Ricoh, Olympus, Fuji will end up like Kodak.
What change? Canon or Nikon’s DSLR’s have been dropping due to a lack o “breakthroughs” in the industry. If they made a camera with a “smart” setting that adapts to the current conditions, make it easy to use, make it easy to sync with smartphones, and price it at 400-500 dollars, it could be a must-have for Instagram addicts.
The SL2 is almost exactly that (a little out of your suggested price range with a kit lens, but it's a better camera than most people need for Instagram and the like), if a DSLR is even the right choice for that demographic. Every manufacturer has something in that ~$500-$700 range that is similarly competent; I only mention the Canon SL2 because it is the most effective when it comes to being "smart" (the new autofocus system in Canon cameras is by far the best in the market; it's frighteningly good, and much faster than a human operator could be). But, 1080p (or 4k) video, good automatic settings, etc. are all pretty standard across the board from every manufacturer. It's hard to find a camera from a good manufacturer that doesn't work great.
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.
Many cameras do now have the ability to sync with a smartphone over Bluetooth or WiFi, it's just unrefined and drains battery life. My camera, the Olympus OM-D E-M5 II, can do this with nothing more than an app install on Android/iOS. The battery drain is problematic, though, and it doesn't work unless you shoot in JPG or RAW+JPG! That's right, it won't auto-convert images on the fly just when requested. Since I shoot RAW only for higher burst performance, that means that I don't use this photo, and wait until I get home before posting anything.
Nikon's SnapBridge app is an abomination. There was a recent upgrade that improved things, but it's still unreliable, even for providing the camera with GPS data.
- 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...