Why, are they needed?<p>SLR was a technology to enable viewing the subject through the lens when another kind of eyefinder with a through-the-lens view was not possible.<p>Now it is: you can have a digital viewfinder that shows the same through-the-lens captured image.
The quote is about the shift to mirrorless vs DSLR, and the article seems to misinterpret that to support the conclusion that phone cameras are killing photography. They even throw in a random comment about film photography in the last paragraph.<p>Canon is still making cameras, and Sony is having more success than ever with the mirrorless transition. Changing the label doesn’t mean that photography is dying.
At various points over the last decade, I've been picking up bargains as one generation of camera type is discarded in favour of another one. This year I've bagged a Canon 5D4 and a Pentax 645Z.<p>I have a Q2 as well and the one advantage the viewfinder confers is the ability to stay at one brightness regardless of the external levels of light. But latency will never match up. Hopefully I'll be dead before they stop making optical viewfinders.