The convenience of mirrorless with no reduction in image quality really made this change basically inevitable.<p>But there is something rather sad for me about this eventually spelling the end of the EF lens line. There was something really magical about being able to use any EF lens on pretty any Canon SLR camera body, even going back to 1987 for either the lens or the camera, with at most a reduction in the automatic feature set. You could get an old hand-me-down and mix-and-match with the newest equipment and keep using it. (There was also the dark side of this, where Canon intentionally kept the electronic connection proprietary to make it more difficult for third-party lens makers to compete)<p>You can still use lens adapters, but nothing quite beats the psychological satisfaction of picking up a 30-year-old lens and sticking it on a brand-new dSLR with no modifications required at all, or taking a modern lens and sticking it on an old-school film SLR.
The writing has been on the wall for awhile.<p>I picked up a nikon z5 after a long haiatus from using dslrs. (for the last 5 years, I made due with just a google pixel)<p>#1 thing you notice is the camera is much more compact. Video feed from the viewfinder is close to flawless. (on rare occasions, it lags)<p>#2 exposure is wysiwyg. I can get an instant preview of the exposure of the image. Its like going from film to dslr in terms of feedback<p>#3 autofocusing is SOOO MUCH BETTER. I can ove around a autofocus pin anywhere on the screen. its just a green square on a video overlay. I can also take advantage of eye tracking in real time. this is a game changer when shooting difficult subjects. Its not perfect but I can easily see it being flawless in a few more generations.<p>#4 this one is specific to nikon but mirrorless gave them the opportunity to rethink the lens mount and lens ecosystem. The lenses sit much closer to the sensor so wide angle lenses can be made MUCH lighter. It also means larger theoretical aperture sizes. Nikon has a new manual focus lens that stops down to f0.95!<p>Additionally, a lot of the things that were downsides of mirrorless have been mitigated as technology has caught up. Battery usage for instance has been an issue with mirrorless systems as they are always on to power the viewfinder. DSLRs by comparison sip power since they only draw a lot of power while taking the photo. I can easily get a full day out of one battery and they are easy to swap so I always walk around with 2-3 backups. Never needed to use them. When I flick it on its pretty close to instant. I wont say its as good as a dslr but Im not using their flagship either. I hear their new z9 is insanely fast.<p>All in all, I'm very happy with switching to mirrorless
This is hardly news. We've all known this was coming, it just hadn't been formerly announced.<p>I still don't find much functional advantage in Mirrorless, but technical improvements have made it really solid technology at this point. Video, low light autofocus and tracking has taken massive leaps forward. The sensor / image quality is relatively the same.<p>Nikon removed the shutter from the Z9 (Disclaimer, I got mine last week). That's a huge leap nobody has been willing to take just yet.<p>The biggest limitations at this point are codec/raw patent roadblocks for video and compression.<p>It's a fun time for imaging technology. I completed my transition to mirrorless last week. Sad to see the old legendary hardware fade away, but the optics on modern glass are FAR superior to older F and EF mount lenses. It's just painful to move systems.
Any recommendations for a model better than my little old Nikon S9100?
I'm neither a photography expert nor a hobbyist but never liked using phones for photos, and the above old camera most of times does pretty much all I want in the Automatic position, so I certainly don't need a DSLR or anything professional, but the Magic Lantern software capabilities intrigue me, so I'd consider buying one, or a mirrorless one, possibly used.
I'd happily trade megapixels with faster shutter and less noisy sensor, particularly in low light conditions. Any suggestions? Thanks!
For the uninitiated, does this have an implication in terms of quality of photo or video? Do DSLRs have some insurmountable advantages compared to mirrorless cameras?