DSLR vs Mirrorless

The case for DSLR - Why mirrorless is inferior.

Fair enough, I have about 35 years behind the lens as a professional. Shot 4x5", 8x10", medium format, the works. Used every camera there is, even cheap digital point-n-shoot compacts. Have about 100 cameras in the collection.

I enjoy my mirrorless for one simple reason - the superzoom. 18-650mm (35mm equiv) with a Leica Vario-Elmarit Aspherical. That's a useful zoom range.

In practice, it's a nightmare. I pull out the Mirrorless, find a subject, zoom in, track the subject, fine. Of course, tracking via the screen is pointless, the sun is too bright, can't see anything. Look in the viewfinder and it's blown-out, super contrasty, super low-resolution. Can't see detail in the corners, can't see depth of field. So we just close our eyes and pray we get the shot.

Now, you're still tracking, right? Okay, now you shoot. The image disappears. You're still tracking, lining up the following shot, but the image does not reappear. No, what you now get is blank screen, followed usually by a timer, followed by a preview of the last photo. Then the screen accepts the live feed, but by now your subject is gone. Shoot some birds in flight at full zoom, see what I mean.

Seriously? I get one semi-guess at the shot, is this professional photography? With my DSLR, none of these issues come to bear. On shoot, the image disappears for such a short period of time, it's not a consideration. Immediately, your subject presents itself to you again, and you shoot continuous. The image in the viewfinder is bright, you see detail in the corners. There's no follow-up blank exposure to subtract the noise.

There's another issue. The zoom on the mirrorless uses a stupid plastic lever that is flimsy and will break. The entire might of the amazing zoom will break if I keep using it. Now... the old DSLR has a staunch, solid, indestructible mechanical zoom ring. My hand will break before the zoom does.

Better than that, the DSLR can focus manually. Because, let's face it, digital can't always work out where you want the focus to fall, particularly if the subject is fine and the background busy. So even if your first image of the subject is out of focus, you can make it in focus without an issue. With mirrorless, forget it. First photo out of focus, all photos out of focus and - wonderfully - on a mirrorless screen or viewfinder, you can't see that the background is in focus and not the subject.

How can the planet possibly be raving about this crap?

I replaced my bike mirrors with a camera and a 7" display. Guess what? The mirrors worked... in the sun, in the wet, without power, developed no faults, wouldn't get stolen and most of all... were reliable. The same with a mirror in a camera. It has, and always will, work fine. In full sun, in the wet, showing focus, showing d.o.f., showing hyperfocal. But some bright spark said hey, why don't we use the sensor array to produce an image instead?

There's one big, brutal reason why not. Sensor arrays use power and generate a lot of heat. There's a difference between always on and on for 1/100th of a second. That's why mirrorless have such huge problems with noise and IR capture. Long exposures are even noisier because of this, making it necessary for the camera to shoot an equivalent blank exposure and subtract that noise from the original. If your exposure is 60 seconds, you have to wait 2 minutes, and all the time the sensor is just generating noise from all the heat.

This, in and of itself, makes mirrorless just plain awful. Most of the time, you're f***ing waiting for the f***ing camera to work out what it's doing, furiously processing at a colossal rate merely to attempt to overcome a few of the deficiencies of the format. With everything you do, you have to f***ing wait for shit that, up until recently, was never a problem.

THEN

With all my cameras, the depth of field is always indicated, as is hyperfocal distance and even, in cases, the plane of focus. With mirrorless... what's depth of field? It's like a phone camera - point and pray. Zero control over anything. I mean, why be a good photographer when you can just Photoshop the result, yeah? 

I know why the world's going mirrorless. It's cheaper to make and earns nicer profits but as a useful, professional piece of equipment, it rolls in with phone cameras as completely useless. press the button, get the picture, on a nice screen it looks good. To the average user. To a photographer, it is just... awful. All of your former criteria - framing, depth, plane, tracking, predictive focus, blur, motion blur, brokeh... are just gone. 

Lastly - digital processing is not a filter. Place a PL on Pan-F with a blue sky and you'll see shit you'll never experience in digital. You won't even experience it with autofocus.

End of rant.

Eight cameras, 5 DSLR from 2011-2014 .. all bodies and lenses are fine. 3 ML from 2016-2019... only the Lumix works, and it's busy breaking. All other bodies and lenses... useless. 

Samsung NX 500 - set you back $800. Doesn't have a viewfinder. 18 months - power fault. All the gadgetry and wizardry makes no difference when there's no power. It is now a paperweight.

Conversely, I have cameras from 1890 to 2010 which work just fine. Yessir, you can yank the batteries out and it will still work. Since the batteries are AA, you can always find fresh ones to use. 

Only the digital cameras, from 2007 onwards... no matter how expensive or amazing... will all eventually die. Planned obsolescence is now bound to the battery, which is a non-standard, unique shape, now discontinued. Starting with the newest cameras first, they will all die.

NOW

Slap a digital back on any SLR, TLR etc... and you have a solid, reliable, high quality instrument that will not die. It will work in subzero, it will generate least noise on the full frame capture and have no IR fog in IR mode.

In other words, you can make a digital camera today, yourself, that's demonstrably better than the limited lifespan of any kit over $1000 from the world's most professional manufacturers. And trust me, when you have better judgement and expertise than they do, there's just no point in even looking at what they're trying to sell. That's why Hasselblad went with a monster digital back, but left the camera untouched. 

POSTSCRIPT

I have an Olympus AR-300 Superzoom from, I dunno, like 1990 or something. You can zoom, sure, but this camera has AUTOZOOM. That's right, why bother zooming when the camera will do it for you?

We know why. Because nothing will frame the shot better than you. Unless you're (a) retarded, or (b) lazy, or both.

That's the camera of today. Disposable, awful and reliant on you being too dumb to care. By my measure, 80% of the web, bleating on about how great mirrorless is, falls into the category of mainstream point and shoot brainless snapshots.

Back in 2010 we had a term for mirrorless. "Mik n Druk" - Point and shoot. The cheapest, crappiest cameras, the cameras anyone with a smidge of pride would avoid at all costs.You'd have to be super clueless to believe that these are anywhere near professional grade.

The NX500 I paid... $0. Saved $800 there. The FZ45 cost me $10. Saved $390 there. Where Joe Bloggs would part with $1200, I part with $10 and even then, complain.