Is there a future for DSLR?

[charlie]

Film is not obsolete, it is just the minority now.

If you compare pictures from a mirrorless camera and DSLR can you tell which was taken with which camera?

What about if you compare a film capture to a digital capture?

I can more often see a difference with film, it has a different look than digital. It's not nostalgia, its just different. I've found film can do things that I've been unable to have digital replicate, granted its pretty specialized but nonetheless, film is not obsolete to me.

As for mirrorless vs DSLR, I could see it take a similar path. Mirrorless cameras become the majority but that doesn't mean DSLR's would become obsolete, I hope not anyway. As mentioned it would be a shame to see all those SLR lenses go to waste. I like using DSLR's, and SLR's, and MF cameras, and imagine I'd like mirrorless too but don't have one... yet. There are places for all of them.

[Ilkka Nissilä]

I think there is room for different products and technologies in the camera market into the foreseeable future. As in the past, no single camera type was used by all photographers for all applications. So it will be in the future, I am sure. To me the EVF is not an acceptable alternative to an OVF and I don't see how that would change in the future. I do use mirrorless cameras at work as components of a technical setup but those will likely be replaced by scientific cameras (with no screens of their own) controlled by a computer in the future.

I would recommend always choosing the products which you find best fit for your needs today rather than worry about the future. You cannot take your lenses to your grave and there is no point in worrying about things outside of your control such as how old lenses will be supported decades from now or what their resale value will be. Such things are not important. I think what is important is for everyone to focus on their lives today and live it as well as they can, in the present rather than in some dream about how things may be in the future.

[Les Olson]

lol. that is well said.

That's very interesting. The mirror is just relevant for viewing, right? The optical length is relevant during the image capture. So are you saying that it is beneficial to produce longer-sized lenses? Although I can't verify the differences in length between comparable Fuji and Nikon lenses, in my memory the Fuji lenses are shorter. Yet, they are considered to be top-of-class. So I am somewhat confused.

It is not the lens length, it is the straightness or obliqueness of the path the photons follow from the lens to reach the sensor.  Silver grains did not care which direction the photons came from, but silicon wells do.  If the photons do not arrive relatively close to perpendicular to the sensor they do not generate photo-electrons.  So the longer the distance between the lens and the sensor the straighter the photon path can be.  Obviously, a short lens to  sensor distance is a much more serious problem if the sensor is large, which is why the Sony A7 series cameras have extreme peripheral light fall off - and in turn why the lenses have extreme barrel distortion, because that reduces the apparent light fall-off.  Purely by chance, it turns out that the longer registration distances required by the mirror are exactly what digital sensors need. 

[pluton]

I will be very pleased if Nikon brings forth a professional style*, 24x36 EVF camera.  It could be exactly the same size as the current models, so as not to cram too many controls into too little 'real estate'. 
I look forward to such a possible unit purely for the low-light advantages of the EVF.  In bright sunlight, the OVF will still be preferred for many/most uses. 
Yes, the OVF focusing screens should be improved or alternatives provided for eye focusing.  If Canon can do it(interchangeable screens), Nikon could do it.
My current mirrorless EVF camera, a Fujifilm XE-1 ---admittedly an early generation in the Fuji product line--- is a fairly well-designed amateur camera that, while capable of producing high quality picture results, is a complete failure as a DMD(Decisive Moment Digital).
*= accepted size, controls, operability and ergonomics.

[Jan Anne]

I have a question to all those mirror-less fans; when will the DSLR become obsolete as film is today?
Is the inevitability going to happen next year, in 3 years, in 7 years, in a dozen years, etc?

The Sony a7 series is now on its second iteration which got rid of many of the (design) faults and short comings of the MK1 models.

Sony just announced the A6300 - their flagship mirrorless crop sensor model - and in their presentation they've openly countered the D5/D500 presentation where Nikon claimed that mirrorless wasn't suited for high fps work due to viewfinder blackout, apparently they've solved that issue now at 8 frames per second (they claim its on par with a $1000 DSLR).

This year Sony will probably announce the a7 MK3, the R and S models will follow a few monts later. I expect these puppies to be on par with their DSLR competitors in their price range, if they don't the 2018 MK4 models definitely will.

There are also some persisting rumours that Sony will bring out a professional A9 model soon, if they do so that will speed up things a little bit, literally

Also when Nikon and Canon come around with their competing models the whole genre will get a boost as they can only gain market share if those models are top notch.

[Jakov Minić]

Again, I didn't get a clear answer
Will the Olympic Games in 2020 (appropriately in Tokyo, Japan) be covered exclusively with mirror-less cameras?

[BW]

The Tokyo olympics will be covered exclusively with smartphones

[David H. Hartman]

There are also new sensor developments, such as organic sensors which - if I understand correctly- will offer full-frame IQ in (much) smaller format.

We don't take the same photograph with a smaller format, not the same perspective, DoF and background blurring. Unless these three don't matter you won't get the same image quality in a smaller format not even DX v. FX.

What are your thoughts? Will DSLRs become nostalgia for a small group? Or will it remain mainstream?  What needs to be done by vendors of DSLR systems to remain mainstream?

dSLR(s) will probably become icons of a past era. Human's are a lazy lot. What dSLR vendors need is an intermittent fixed mirror so viewfinder brightness can be maintained while viewing but during the exposure the maximum light can transmitted to the image sensor. The Dick Tracy wrist TV was once fantasy. One can buy a wrist TV today and have over-night shipping. A solid state mirror may happen.

If dSLR makers can over come the problems of current moving mirrors then a small group of professionals and very serious amateurs (lovers of photography) will remain dSLR customers. The price of dSLR(s) will increase as there will be less units sold so a greater portion of the cost R&D will fall on a single unit.

When someone asks you what to do: buy a new DSLR system (incl lenses) or invest in a mirrorless system, what would you recommend?

Well first let's clear up one mistake. We don't "invest" in a camera system. Whether for business or pleasure a camera system is an expense. Very few camera actually appreciate value against an inflated currency. Only those are an investment.

What would I recommend? I'd size up the potential camera buyer and recommend a dSLR if they are serious and if ... I'll get in trouble if I continue.

Just curious what you think!

I hope I die before I can't buy another dSLR.

Best,

Dave

I'm carrying a Nikon D800 and several small lenses everywhere I go. I wish that would make me a better photographer. Anyway it hasn't kill me.

---

If this person did their math right here is what I'm talking about...

http://howmuchblur.com/#compare-1x-105mm-f2.5-and-1.5x-70mm-f1.7-and-1.5x-70mm-f2.8-on-a-0.9m-wide-subject

The basics for background blurring is if the background is well outside the DoF zone use a larger format with a longer lens which will give you a larger absolute aperture, a big front element. This is something that intuitively came to photographers from using 35mm, 6x6 and 4x5 in the late film era. 

[David H. Hartman]

The only market suffering is the point and shoot cameras - they are replaced by mirrorless and phones...

Thank you, I feel better now. 

Dave

[Tristin]

What everyone should be able to agree upon is that manufacturers really need to pay more attention to the viewfinders of their cameras. The best lenses in the world and über-high megapixel figures are of little value if you cannot bring the lens to the optimal focus.

A further point is camera designs that allow better handling and that does NOT entail making the cameras smaller and lighter.

I feel exactly the same.  The parts of mirrorless that are really enticing are the benefits that only mirrorless EVFs have been fitted with, though OVFs could support.  Focus peaking and live RGB histograms could be overlayed in an OVF live, with imperceptable delay.  Technology such as Google Glass and the EVFs of mirrorless camera prove this to be irrefutable. I will always prefer an OVF because I want to see what *I* see, not what an electrical system sees, and no technological improvement can change that.

 Incorporating the ideas these techs have brought forward would improve the experience unquestionably for OVF DSLR users, without penalty to the experience as it has always been  You would be able to toggle the OVF overlays just like you do viewfrinder grids/levels or the various overlays in live view.  I think it would be quite stupid to not incorporate these new technical possibilites, as there will always be those who prefer an OVF.

Though, many stupid things have been done in hstory.  Perhaps nobody keeps OVFs up to date and it is slowly killed off by EVFs.  Man would that suck, yet not surprise me.  So says the cynic in me.

[Tom Gresham]

Just made a one-week trip to Key West.  Decided to leave the D810 and Zeiss lenses at home and take the Fuji X system.  I had just updated the firmware on the X-E2, and the focus is fast.

I felt like I was shooting pictures with a toy.  Very unsatisfying.  Lenses have no weight, no feel. 

I returned determined to sell the entire Fuji system (6 lenses).   I'd just rather use the Nikon gear when I want good photos. I also have a Sony A7r body which I bought for video.  I may try that with the Nikon mount lenses. 

But, the cheesy feel of the plastic fantastic just left me cold.

[richardHaw]

The Tokyo olympics will be covered exclusively with smartphones

100% agree 

[Bjørn Rørslett]

The day you pick up a nice camera, use it extensively with success, then by accident discover it is mirrorless ... maybe it will happen, maybe not.

Lest anyone should consider me a stout enemy of the mirrorless principle, I hasten to add I also own around ten different ones at present (Sony, Panasonic, Fuji, Nikon). However, none of them is anywhere near fulfilling the "Turing's test for photography" outlined in the opening paragraph. So I won't hold my breath - yet. My mirrorless cameras have given me some options, most of them not new to the scene, but solved differently.

Besides the obvious points of needing much better finders and general handling, there is also the question of lenses. Using third-party lenses via an adapter is of course fun and make playing with gadgets or exotic optics entertaining, but in most cases one is robbed of all the automation progress made since the '50s with no evident reward in sight. Native lenses with good handling properties are required.

[tommiejeep]

I can learn the controls, user interface on any camera (sometimes a real pain in the backside).  I can learn the settings that suit me best.

 The day that I can pick up a camera with an EVF that allows me to continuously follow the travels of a soccer ball in a fast pitched match, with a 300mm-500mm (Dx and Fx bodies) lens for close up of the action,  I will think DSLRs with OVFs have been caught.  Same goes for small, fast, erratic birds which are even more difficult.   Sure, I can shoot with a shorter/wider lens and , as long as I have the shutter speeds and dof, catch most of the action.  I can get images and there are some great shooters that get better but even they will admit that their success rate is anything but good.  That goes for "Brand Ambassadors" getting paid to promote the gear.

When talking about the Olympics, Panasonic had a guy shoot the London Olympics with a GH-4.  Yes, he did get some good images but most were static targets or targets that moved in a limited, defined pattern.  He did not answer questions about number of shots per keeper 

[Bjørn Rørslett]

The mirrorless crowd will do themselves a service by understanding camera ergonomics isn't something you design randomly or by following some fashionable trends. The better designs evolve by natural selection over time.  The human interface has its quirks that the designers really need to pay more attention to. Extensive menu systems simply are not the answer. Straight-forward, functional designs with ample space for fingers and other human extremities are what we should ask for, but oh so rarely get. A viewfinder that "understands" the human eye needs adaptation to the ambient light conditions in order not to be "blind" when you remove your eye from the finder (an area in which current EVFs fail badly; they should ramp up brightness only on demand and likewise slowly decrease in intensity so your dark and night vision isn't impaired. Of course an OVF does this by default as it interacts with the eye in the natural way).

The SLR principle needed nearly a century to reach its pinnacle of design and functionality. The DSLR after nearly two decades clearly can still be improved, although many of the basics are well manifested and functional. Thus our sights for the "perfect" mirrorless system is not to be set to the present time, but somewhere in the future.