The Mirrorless Revolution

[deejjjaaaa]

1) Lag, mirrorless needs to read out the viewfinder image from the sensor which introduces a lag.

and what is this lag exactly ? in ms.

2) Viewfinder image contrast, but this amy be tuneable.

that's an image displayed - you can do whatever you want w/ it... you can't do this with OVF

3) Viewfinder resolution

if you want you can just enlarge any area in EVF (zoom in w/o zooming your lens) - you can't do this with OVF, so it is OVF resulution which is a problem in fact (and when it's dark you can't boost the brighness of OVF)

[ErikKaffehr]

Hi,

This is not really the case. The short flange distance makes it possible to design symmetrical lenses with essentially no distortion. On the other hand, symmetrical lenses have issues with short back focus distance causing problems with light fall off.

The real problem is designing small lenses that work well with large digital sensors.

Another significant problem with any digital camera is that there is an optical package in front of the sensor 2-4 mm thick, that causes astigmatism in lenses with large beam angle. That must be compensated in lens design.

The flange distance on it's own is not a problem, you can use DSLR lenses on a mirrorless system with an adapter that simply acts as an extension tube, but the size advantage will be lost.

Best regards
Erik

However the main problems that face mirrorless remain, price relative to other normal crop sensor and FF bodies, and the system.
People can point to the new wave of modern designs, but these come with a higher challenge for optics (with the lens sitting closer to the sensor) this was and remains a problem for designers with distortion and fall off much more of a problem than normal DSLR type designs.

[Guillermo Luijk]

However the main problems that face mirrorless remain, price relative to other normal crop sensor and FF bodies, and the system.
People can point to the new wave of modern designs, but these come with a higher challenge for optics (with the lens sitting closer to the sensor) this was and remains a problem for designers with distortion and fall off much more of a problem than normal DSLR type designs.

I don't agree. The A7 is the cheapest FF camera on the market. There are mirrorless cameras at the same price as entry level DSLR's. It is not fair to compare a E-M1 with a basic Canikon model.

Mirrorless cameras short flange distance makes both possible to design small lenses (with all optical challenges derived), so as big lenses ala DSLR. Small size on mirrorless is an option and thus it can be an advantage over DSLR's. Big size on DSLR is a must so it can be a disadvantage over mirrorless.

[MoreOrLess]

I don't agree. The A7 is the cheapest FF camera on the market. There are mirrorless cameras at the same price as entry level DSLR's. It is not fair to compare a E-M1 with a basic Canikon model.

This does have to be gauged against the cost of the system as a whole though, I think its pretty clear Sony is using a "cheap body, expensive lenses" ploy here, none of the FE lenses released thus far represent good value relative to DSLR alternatives.
Plus of course I would argue that you looking at a body more basic in design than any FF DSLR, even the likes of the D610 and 6D offer significantly more advanced handling.

Mirrorless cameras short flange distance makes both possible to design small lenses (with all optical challenges derived), so as big lenses ala DSLR. Small size on mirrorless is an option and thus it can be an advantage over DSLR's. Big size on DSLR is a must so it can be a disadvantage over mirrorless.

Even in the days of film of course it was a bit give and take here as certain SLR lenses were smaller but as has been mentioned the switch to digital has had a significant negative impact on size saving with wide lenses on systems with short flange distances. Digital sensors are not nearly as forgiving as film was when it comes to light hitting them at extreme angles.

[barryfitzgerald]

This does have to be gauged against the cost of the system as a whole though, I think its pretty clear Sony is using a "cheap body, expensive lenses" ploy here, none of the FE lenses released thus far represent good value relative to DSLR alternatives.
Plus of course I would argue that you looking at a body more basic in design than any FF DSLR, even the likes of the D610 and 6D offer significantly more advanced handling.

Even in the days of film of course it was a bit give and take here as certain SLR lenses were smaller but as has been mentioned the switch to digital has had a significant negative impact on size saving with wide lenses on systems with short flange distances. Digital sensors are not nearly as forgiving as film was when it comes to light hitting them at extreme angles.

Glad someone gets it yes even on film a real challenge esp with wider angle lenses, and hence the reason offset micro lenses are even more important.
Looking at the recent offerings from Sony and Fuji I've yet to see any lenses turn up that are in any way indicative of the "let's go small" element so many are keen to put forward in fact many of the recent Sony E mount FF lenses are in fact not only not small but bigger than alternative DSLR equivalents. The only thing small is the body the small system only counts for micro 4/3 where they have a much smaller sensor.

As for price the Sony and Fuji lenses offer a compelling reason for DSLR users to simply ignore these offerings a paper tiger if there ever was one

[MoreOrLess]

Glad someone gets it yes even on film a real challenge esp with wider angle lenses, and hence the reason offset micro lenses are even more important.
Looking at the recent offerings from Sony and Fuji I've yet to see any lenses turn up that are in any way indicative of the "let's go small" element so many are keen to put forward in fact many of the recent Sony E mount FF lenses are in fact not only not small but bigger than alternative DSLR equivalents. The only thing small is the body the small system only counts for micro 4/3 where they have a much smaller sensor.

As for price the Sony and Fuji lenses offer a compelling reason for DSLR users to simply ignore these offerings a paper tiger if there ever was one

To me its notable that the Sony FE lenses released thus far aren't really any smaller than you would expect from a DSLR AND they seem to be more compromised in terms of performance. The 35mm 2.8 has light dropoff when stopped down that's simply unacceptable, the 24-70mm is poor at the long end of the range, the 55mm is an excellent performer but its actually larger than most similarly speced SLR lenses. The argument might well be there that for a tiny register distances like the Sony's(much smaller than Leica's) many lens designs might actually need to be larger than on SLR's, effectively swapping less body depth for more lens depth.

Again for me the area where I see a gap in Canon and Nikons product line ups is when it comes to higher end small ASPC systems. I think the attraction for a lot of people with something like the X-T1 is that its a smaller body that's well built with controls aimed at the serious user backed up by a lens lineup also aimed at that kind of user. If Nikon sat put out something the size of the D5300 with controls and build similar to the Df and say a DX 35mm 1.4 of good quality I think it would eat significantly into the Fuji's market.

That said I think a fundamental misjudgement a lot of people make with the mirrorless market is looking at the world wide sales/shipments and then relate it to the kind of mirrorless cameras that sell in the west. In the US/UK higher end bodies makeup a lot of the sales but your talking a much smaller mirrorless market relative to Japan and the far east that makes up the majority of mirrorless sales and most of those big numbers are made up of smaller lower end bodies, including of course Canon and Nikon's systems.

In that respect I don't think its so much mirrorless cameras "stealing" DSLR sales as offering an option to people who might otherwise have used a compact or a phone. I'm guessing they've done much better in Japan simply because a higher percentage of the population there value image quality and DOF control.

[deejjjaaaa]

I think it would eat significantly into the Fuji's market.

Fuji has no marketshare to speak about - so nobody cares to eat into it... it like trying to eat into marketshare of Samsung or Ricoh.

[deejjjaaaa]

As for price the Sony and Fuji lenses offer a compelling reason for DSLR users to simply ignore these offerings a paper tiger if there ever was one

do you seriously think that owners of Sony, m43, Fuji, other dSLMs were all P&S shooters or those were their first cameras

[dchew]

What you guys are missing is that those of us who are using the a7r are not limited to Sony's lens offerings. I have the Leica 16/19/21 WATE, Sony 35 FE, Sony 55, and Leica 90 f/2. I challenge you to come up with a DSLR that comes close to the size, image quality and resolution of that kit. The Leica lenses are not light, but they are small. And you have to consider the whole enchilada, so to speak. Bags, filters, etc.

I just got back from backpacking in Wyoming's Wind River Mountains. 70 miles in 6 days. The a7r w/ 35mm and 90mm sat in a chest pouch. I could use it without taking my pack off and it served as a reasonable back up to my Alpa. No way I would have brought a DSLR for that.

As far as the 35mm's light falloff when stopped down, sure it is more than some other good lenses, but I wouldn't call it "unacceptable." Have you tried it? I still added a little vignetting to many of my shots. It is not as good as the 55mm, but after comparing it with my Zeiss f/2 (Canon mount), it is certainly comparable to that, and significantly smaller and lighter. F/2.8 vs f/2, but the Zeiss T rating on DXO is 2.4 anyway.

There are a lot of "I wishes" with this system, and probably the most annoying is Sony's quality control with lenses. But I think in 5 -10 years the DSLR will be looked at as a temporary solution to two technical problems: How to see an acceptable image of what is on the capture plane, and fast, accurate autofocus.

Dave

[ErikKaffehr]

Hi,

I would essentially agree with everything you say.

Best regards
Erik

What you guys are missing is that those of us who are using the a7r are not limited to Sony's lens offerings. I have the Leica 16/19/21 WATE, Sony 35 FE, Sony 55, and Leica 90 f/2. I challenge you to come up with a DSLR that comes close to the size, image quality and resolution of that kit. The Leica lenses are not light, but they are small. And you have to consider the whole enchilada, so to speak. Bags, filters, etc.

I just got back from backpacking in Wyoming's Wind River Mountains. 70 miles in 6 days. The a7r w/ 35mm and 90mm sat in a chest pouch. I could use it without taking my pack off and it served as a reasonable back up to my Alpa. No way I would have brought a DSLR for that.

As far as the 35mm's light falloff when stopped down, sure it is more than some other good lenses, but I wouldn't call it "unacceptable." Have you tried it? I still added a little vignetting to many of my shots. It is not as good as the 55mm, but after comparing it with my Zeiss f/2 (Canon mount), it is certainly comparable to that, and significantly smaller and lighter. F/2.8 vs f/2, but the Zeiss T rating on DXO is 2.4 anyway.

There are a lot of "I wishes" with this system, and probably the most annoying is Sony's quality control with lenses. But I think in 5 -10 years the DSLR will be looked at as a temporary solution to two technical problems: How to see an acceptable image of what is on the capture plane, and fast, accurate autofocus.

Dave

[barryfitzgerald]

do you seriously think that owners of Sony, m43, Fuji, other dSLMs were all P&S shooters or those were their first cameras

Did I say that?
The thread title is suggesting there is a revolution and that this is the future (ILC's)
Maybe it escaped a few people but there are a lot of folks invested in DSLR's and systems, unless  you can come up with a reason for people to convert to ILC's (and to date there are few) I can't see how this will pan out longer term

On the ground most people seem to go for a DSLR if they move up from a bridge type camera or point and shoot
As a DSLR user myself I simply added a premium compact for when I want to "travel light" I have no real need for another system camera

[MoreOrLess]

What you guys are missing is that those of us who are using the a7r are not limited to Sony's lens offerings. I have the Leica 16/19/21 WATE, Sony 35 FE, Sony 55, and Leica 90 f/2. I challenge you to come up with a DSLR that comes close to the size, image quality and resolution of that kit. The Leica lenses are not light, but they are small. And you have to consider the whole enchilada, so to speak. Bags, filters, etc.

I'd agree its true that manual very expensive Leica's seem to be able to get over the issue with UWA but then again is that really the basis for a large shift in the market?

As far as the 35mm's light falloff when stopped down, sure it is more than some other good lenses, but I wouldn't call it "unacceptable." Have you tried it? I still added a little vignetting to many of my shots. It is not as good as the 55mm, but after comparing it with my Zeiss f/2 (Canon mount), it is certainly comparable to that, and significantly smaller and lighter. F/2.8 vs f/2, but the Zeiss T rating on DXO is 2.4 anyway.

The Zeiss and Nikon lenses in that comparison have significant light falloff wide open and I'd agree shooting wide open that's often a desired effected. Stopped down though as you generally would for landscape use the Sony still has significant light dropoff across much of the frame with the corners still well over a stop where as the other two have very little.

[Telecaster]

I own the Zeiss 35/2.8…can't say I've seen this "unacceptable" falloff when stopped down. Maybe I won the QC sweepstakes!

I like mirrorless cameras mainly because I love EVFs. When CaNikon dumps the flipping mirror and starts providing super accurate VF manual focusing I may take it seriously again as an option. Until then…pfftt.

-Dave-

[barryfitzgerald]

I own the Zeiss 35/2.8…can't say I've seen this "unacceptable" falloff when stopped down. Maybe I won the QC sweepstakes!

I like mirrorless cameras mainly because I love EVFs. When CaNikon dumps the flipping mirror and starts providing super accurate VF manual focusing I may take it seriously again as an option. Until then…pfftt.

-Dave-

I've not used the lens so can't comment on it's optical properties, but let me say £600 for a 35mm f2.8 prime is rather dubious at best. f2.8 isn't exactly fast for a prime of that focal length, if it were f2 or faster you'd likely have some fairly bad fall off problems. But that's the speed people want for a prime like that..f2.8 we're well into "don't bother buy a zoom" territory.

Looking at the reviews...
http://www.photozone.de/sonyalphaff/865-zeiss35f28ff?start=1

The auto-corrected light falloff at max. aperture is very moderate for a lens on a full format camera. At f/2.8, we are seeing a light falloff of 1.3EV (f-stops). Stopping down doesn't help a lot with a best low value of just under 1EV. This remains visible in certain scenes.
The situation changes when looking at the uncorrected data. At fully open aperture, the falloff is a hefty 2.6EV. Stopping down to f/8 gives you 1.6EV which is still not good. Please note that the auto-correction effect is clearly visible in the image corners - due to the signal amplification they are more noisy than the image center. It is interesting to note that the RAW files are also touched when activating the auto-correction in the camera.

The other problem is neither of the Zeiss primes launched are stabilised either, though at least the 55mm is fairly fast
Some said Sony avoided ultra fast primes esp wider angle ones as they'd have serious issues with vignetting, looking at the uncorrected fall off one can only imagine how bad a genuinely fast 35mm prime would be on the FE bodies, try 35mm f1.4 and I'd expect massive problems.

The fall off on the Sony seems similar to the Nikon 35mm f1.4 G in fact a bit worse but that lens is 2 stops faster (which is significant) and it's still a problem stopped down (unlike DSLR primes which won't have issues at smaller apertures)
Looking at the reliance on software correction it's fairly clear FF sensors on ILC's need much better designed micro lenses to reduce the problems

Shoving a FF sensor into a small body with a very short flange distance is the stuff lens designers have nightmares over

[dchew]

I own the Zeiss 35/2.8…can't say I've seen this "unacceptable" falloff when stopped down. Maybe I won the QC sweepstakes!

I like mirrorless cameras mainly because I love EVFs. When CaNikon dumps the flipping mirror and starts providing super accurate VF manual focusing I may take it seriously again as an option. Until then…pfftt.

-Dave-

See Dave, the problem with you and me is, we just don't know how bad we have it.

[BJL]

... the switch to digital has had a significant negative impact on size saving with wide lenses on systems with short flange distances. Digital sensors are not nearly as forgiving as film was when it comes to light hitting them at extreme angles.

This myth has to be rebutted yet again: lenses with rear elements close to the focal plane (too close to use with an SLR) do not necessarily have the highly off-perpendicular incidence of light her the edges and corners of the frame that classic near-symmetric rangefinder wide-angle lenses have. Instead, they can be highly telecentric, as electronic sensors prefer.  In fact lenses for fixed lens digital cameras tend to be like this: quite tele-centric, and with rear elements very close to the focal plane.

The bottom line is that a mirror-less system allows lens to have rear elements close to the focal plane and thus opens up more design options, while not taking any away.  It does not force SLR optical designs to be abandoned when they still work well, it does not force the use of film rangefinder lens designs, etc.

It is hard to deny that there are many lenses for mirror-less digital systems that are distinctly smaller than any comparable lens for a DSLR, especially amongst lenses with wide-angle coverage.

[barryfitzgerald]

This myth has to be rebutted yet again: lenses with rear elements close to the focal plane (too close to use with an SLR) do not necessarily have the highly off-perpendicular incidence of light her the edges and corners of the frame that classic near-symmetric rangefinder wide-angle lenses have. Instead, they can be highly telecentric, as electronic sensors prefer.  In fact lenses for fixed lens digital cameras tend to be like this: quite tele-centric, and with rear elements very close to the focal plane.

The bottom line is that a mirror-less system allows lens to have rear elements close to the focal plane and thus opens up more design options, while not taking any away.  It does not force SLR optical designs to be abandoned when they still work well, it does not force the use of film rangefinder lens designs, etc.

It is hard to deny that there are many lenses for mirror-less digital systems that are distinctly smaller than any comparable lens for a DSLR, especially amongst lenses with wide-angle coverage.

Care to demonstrate these smaller lenses?
All the real world stuff so far demonstrates fall off is a much higher problem on FF sensors with short flange distances, no myths just reality that some refuse to accept
It always was a problem, even with the best rangefinder lenses even on 35mm film (which tolerates acute angles of light hitting it far better than most sensors)

The fly in the soup well there are 2, not smaller lenses (compare the FF ILC offerings to normal DSLR ones and it's not holding up at all) and optical compromises abound.
It's time some folks stopped banding around mirror less as some kind of panacea or photographic heaven at least as far as full frame goes, situation isn't as bad for APS-C and micro 4/3 due to the smaller sensors.

[dchew]

Here's one:
Both are f/2. 100mm vs. 90, but that is pretty close. Both manual focus, both "pretty good" lenses. The Zeiss is better wide open, but once you get to f/4, the differences are subjective. The Zeiss focuses closer, but this image shows both lenses set to infinity, which is their shortest length.

And I certainly agree there is more light falloff on some lenses. But to say that means they are unusable, unacceptable and makes those lenses 'not count' in anyone's analysis is not something I agree with. We all have our personal constraints we abide by. You may have a certain limit to light falloff as one of yours. But that doesn't mean I have to accept that same constraint in my analysis and decision.

Dave

[deejjjaaaa]

Maybe it escaped a few people but there are a lot of folks invested in DSLR's and systems

may be it escaped you that "a lot" for whom "invested" is around $10K+ is a tiny market share population wise... those might stay, like people who shoot MF or LF.

, unless  you can come up with a reason for people to convert to ILC's (and to date there are few)

for those it starts not with conversion - but buying as a 2nd, 3rd, you name it camera... that it is creeping in as a camera that you more often take w/ you... and so on.

On the ground most people seem to go for a DSLR if they move up from a bridge type camera or point and shoot

nope - most will go to "C or N" label, not for a "dSLR"... so once C & N decide to market dSLM (and they might just initially make it absolutely like dSLR body) those "most people" will simply buy what is marketed to them

[Hans Kruse]

With the new Sony 16-35 f/4 announced, I have updated the comparison sheet including the weight differences.

Note that Nikon does not have a 24-70 f/4 so I took the 24-120 f/4 instead which is heavier than a 24-70 f/4 should be.