Camera manufacturers seem to be moving at speed from DSLRs to mirrorless. In case of Canon, that means a different lens mount. Since I'll need to use an adapter for my current lenses anyway, it seems like a good time to re-evaluate brands. Some questions after using a Canon 7D:<p>- Is keeping my lenses and moving to a different brand of mirrorless a dumb idea in the first place?<p>- Can EF mount lenses be fully utilised with mirrorless cameras? That is, can I shoot pretty much the same pictures, or am I going to lose significant light/zoom/other?<p>- The raw image format is completely proprietary and only used by Canon. Are any of the other vendors better at making life easier for photo editing programs?<p>- The original firmware is not very flexible. For example, requiring an external device for continuous shooting seems crazy. Magic Lantern[1], as impressive as it is, seems to suck battery and the UI is less friendly than the original. And if I understand correctly Canon is making it harder, not easier, for third party firmware with newer models. Are there any particularly good brands for moddability (without having to be a firmware engineer myself)?<p>- The image quality is decent. Within similar price brackets it seems like most cameras are too similar to be a deal breaker. Is that a reasonable view?<p>- Light sensitivity is not great. I don't like using flash, which means pretty much anything indoors needs to be fully open and slow. Do any brands/cameras stand out in this category?<p>- It works decently as a webcam, except that it outputs a weird format which doesn't include microphone audio. Is this still a problem with mirrorless cameras?<p>[1] https://magiclantern.fm/
This is what I have<p><a href="https://electronics.sony.com/imaging/interchangeable-lens-cameras/full-frame/p/ilce7m2-b" rel="nofollow">https://electronics.sony.com/imaging/interchangeable-lens-ca...</a><p>when I was looking to get a mirrorless I wanted to get a full frame camera. When I looked at reviews I saw a lot of complaining about the autofocus on entry-level full frame Canon and Nikons and that was decisive for me.<p>I like the selection of lenses for Sony cameras today, looking at the photos I've taken over time I even like the kit lens that came with the camera.<p>Consider trying a good quality flash, I get great results with<p><a href="https://www.sony.com/lr/electronics/interchangeable-lens-cameras-flashes-lights/hvl-f32m" rel="nofollow">https://www.sony.com/lr/electronics/interchangeable-lens-cam...</a><p>with a bounce flash you can take pictures of people who don't look dead. You don't have to be one of those people in a 1990s ad for a redeye reduction feature. A flash even improves pictures taken during the day filling out harsh shadows.<p>So far as image quality, the Sony delivers more pixels than the optical system can resolve in most cases. If I zoom in really close usually the image looks less than "tack sharp" but when I look how zoomed in I am I realize that the image is just fine: I am happy with the results I get when I scale out images for the web or make prints on anything from 4x6 cards to 8.5x14.<p>One minus I've seen is that I sometime see moire effects. I have a picture of my barn from the top of my hill, which has a corrugated metal surface that has faint circles superimposed on it because the corrugation interactions with the stride of the pixels. Also, Sony gives you a choice between compressed and uncompressed raws where the compressed raws have some quality loss and the uncompressed raws are huge. I run with the uncompressed raws and just deal with it, I have a 14TB storage array.
I bought a Canon R6 last year, and am very happy with it. In the past, I have owned Sony Alpha A7M3, Canon Rebel XTi, Nikon D600, Nikon D7100, and Pentax K5. Canon R6 is definitely the one I am happiest with.<p>- All my Canon EF lenses work fine with an adapter. There is no loss of light or functionality. I bought the adapter that has a control ring[1], and this gives me an additional dial of adjustment on the lens.<p>- This works as a webcam on both my Windows 11 and MacOS machines using Canon EOS Webcam Utility[2]. In meetings, I often get complimented on my video, and get asked about my setup.<p>- Image quality is top-notch, though this is somewhat of a personal perference.<p>- I have an ancient version of Adobe Lightroom (v4) that I refuse to upgrade, since it has a perpetual, offline, license. I use the free Adobe Digital Negative Converter[3] to convert Canon's RAW files (CRAW) to DNG format.<p>- Video files contain a ton of details. I use DaVinvi Resolve to color grade, and have to use ffmgeg as an intermediate step to convert format. I am sure there is some setting in the camera I can change. However, I have scripted this process so much that this is essentially painless for me.<p>- The body is a bit larger that I would like in a mirrorless format. However, the ergonomics are the best I have come across. It has more dials and customizable buttons that I know what do with.<p>- The camera has a built in intervalometer.<p>[1] <a href="https://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/1433718-REG/canon_mount_adapter_ef_rf_with.html" rel="nofollow">https://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/1433718-REG/canon_mou...</a>
[2] <a href="https://www.canon.de/cameras/eos-webcam-utility/" rel="nofollow">https://www.canon.de/cameras/eos-webcam-utility/</a>
[3] <a href="https://helpx.adobe.com/camera-raw/using/adobe-dng-converter.html" rel="nofollow">https://helpx.adobe.com/camera-raw/using/adobe-dng-converter...</a>
What do you take photos of? The mirrorless "replacement" for the 7D is the recently announced R7 [0].<p>The R7 does have a built-in intervalometer, if that's what you mean by taking continuous photos. The other interpretation of continuous photos is holding down the shutter release and taking photos as fast as it can.<p>Generally, newer cameras do better in low light. Autofocus in low light is improved in the current crop of mirrorless cameras vs DSLRs.<p>[0] <a href="https://www.usa.canon.com/internet/portal/us/home/products/details/cameras/eos-dslr-and-mirrorless-cameras/mirrorless/eos-r7" rel="nofollow">https://www.usa.canon.com/internet/portal/us/home/products/d...</a>
I use EF lenses with my mirrorless camera and I have never owned a Canon camera.
Electronic adapters are (relative to the price of a camera) pretty cheap. You can keep your EF lenses and use it with almost any mirrorless camera and they will work well.<p>If they are full-frame EF lenses (and not EF-S) you can even get adapters (called speedboosters or focal reducers) that have additional lens elements to allow you to a larger field-of-view (very close to 35mm full-frame) and more light (approx an additional f-stop).<p>I would go read some reviews -- but not just of cameras, but also lens adapters.
For budget option I would go with Fuji XT30, for more professional and expensive option I recommend Sony A7 iii, or Mark IV if you can afford it. I'm very happy with Mark iii bought used for portraits and landscape photography.