Would mirrorless will take over DSLR very soon?

[smoke665]

In a few days it will be 7 months since the OP started this thread and DSLR continues. Will be interesting to check out this thread a year from now.

 

[Braineack]

I know Sony went dual pixel and everyone is raving about it, and thiers blows away Canons apparently

 

[Derrel]

I know Sony went dual pixel and everyone is raving about it, and thiers blows away Canons apparently

There is quite a lot of advantage to making the second or third offering in a product category. It is easy when you are last to Market and have a particular product or technology that your engineering department is trying to better.

I am interested to see how well Nikon's new live view focusing with wide area coverage is received, and also I am interested in seeing how well their eye detect autofocus works, as well as their adoption of the D5's autofocusing algorithm, and their adoption of the Nikon D850 rear screen.

A few posts up cgw called this camera a member of the prosumer category. I don't think that is accurate, as I look at the prosumer as the person who must have the newest and the latest and greatest and chases features. My experience has shown that the Nikon D750 was a very very popular camera with wedding and social photographers, and I think that this is where the D780 will find its greatest market share. I think that the prosumer will typically buy whatever crap Sony dishes out, and they will buy it as soon as it hits the market. The prosumer has to have bragging rights of owning the latest and the greatest, and the Nikon D750 lasted from 2014 until today so five years or six years, depending on how you count the years.

I think the prosumer is much more likely a buyer for a Nikon Z6 or Z7 but I think this camera is aimed at hobbyists and also at professional wedding shooters, as well as those who shoot maternity, engagement, and family photography.

 

[Braineack]

Yeah, this is still going to be a VERY popular wedding camera. And now with its release I'll probably trade my D610 in for a D750 as a backup once the prices drop.

 

[TWX]

I still want to know what Canon is going to do with the mid/high end 1.6 crop market. The 7DII has not been updated with a III and it seems that rumour suggests there won't be a III. I really hope it just means we get new model line at the mid-high end iwth weather sealing and top end performance.

I thought the 90D was the high end crop camera.
A scaling back/consolidation of the Canon APS-C dSLR line, in anticipation of migrating to the M50 et.al.

Based on some other discussion somewhere I looked up the stats on the 7D-II vs the 90D. The 7D-II still has a few features either not available in the 90D or better than the 90D, at least on paper.

Take this with a grain of salt, I've not used either camera. For all I know those features were superfluous.

Looks like Canon is still betting on the dSLR for the high end pros.
I just got a sales announcement of the new Canon 1DX-Mark 3, at a whopping $6,500.

I can see a couple of reasons for this. First, the target market for this camera consists largely of existing professional photographers. Those professionls have been shooting with SLRs and DSLRs and are both accustomed to the single lens reflex format generally, and possibly familiar with the 1Dx or 1DX-II in particular, such that upgrading to the newest of a familiar line with basically the same body dimensions and controls is entirely justified. Second, if Canon does not feel that their live-view/EVF technology is real-time enough for sports photography, they're better off waiting until they're sure not to alienate the professionals by supplying equipment that leads to missing the shot due to screen lag.

Something to bear in mind is that neither DSLR nor mirrorless developments happen in secrecy to each other, improvements in one type can inform for improvements in the other. It's possible that we could even see something of a hybrid- imagine a pro camera possessing both a mirror for a sports-shooter that wants it, but also integrates an EVF, perhaps by some mechanical shift inside of the viewfinder housing, such that the same eyepiece on the back can serve double-duty. That type of arrangement would still require EF-mount lenses, but it's not like there's a dearth of options there. For a professional with a lens measuring a couple feet in length, the extra inch of flange distance in the camera body probably doesn't amount to very much.

Plus it makes sense to let the consumer camera market work out the bugs before migrating a technology to the pro cameras.

 

[malling]

@malling, it will take a while to get the Mirrorless to the level of the 1Dx and the D5/6 for Professional sports and journalism. That being said, with the features in the 1Dx mark III, Canon appears to be heading in that direction. Probably not there yet but I could see the next iteration of the 1dx line being a mirrorless camera. When will that be? Most likely for the 2024 Olympic games. Make no mistake about it, this camera came out for that purpose this summer.

I look forward to seeing images with this camera and eventually owning one or two of them. But I am also excited about the possibilities of a Professional Mirrorless body as well. (I don't want to know what the R mount 300mm f/2.8 or 400mm f/2.8 is going to cost)

I agree that for the top level of dSLR or for Sports photography there is a way to go before Mirrorless reach that level. But those model count for a very small fraction of the total market. I’m pretty sure Mirrorless will have the largest stake on the market within very few years, however there will still be pockets where dSLR will hold its ground, for how long it’s hard to say. One of the biggest problems for the new generation of Mirrorless is still battery runtime, but it has actually more to due with lack of battery development then power consumption of the camera itself. We encounter the exact same problem with Cars, Smartphones etc. battery technology that we use to day hasn’t kept up with the overall technology.

Yeah the next 5 years might be one of the more interesting times to live in technology speaking.

 

[Overread]

Canon might be releasing more for their mirrorless brand, but lets not forget that they've a huge library of EF lenses for their regular DSLRs. Those lenses are already top of their game and chances are that updates for them don't generate huge sales because those who already have them are unlikely to upgrade so quickly when the existing models are already very top grade. The mirrorless market is newer and so there's more scope to add specific brand lenses and products to it because there isn't anything else out for it. I'd be surprised if Canon dropped their DSLRs entirely. Instead I can see them contract the focus on product lines and new product lines and camera lines instead of spreading their attention thin like they had started to do.

 

[TWX]

Canon might be releasing more for their mirrorless brand, but lets not forget that they've a huge library of EF lenses for their regular DSLRs. Those lenses are already top of their game and chances are that updates for them don't generate huge sales because those who already have them are unlikely to upgrade so quickly when the existing models are already very top grade. The mirrorless market is newer and so there's more scope to add specific brand lenses and products to it because there isn't anything else out for it. I'd be surprised if Canon dropped their DSLRs entirely. Instead I can see them contract the focus on product lines and new product lines and camera lines instead of spreading their attention thin like they had started to do.

I'm not so sure about that, if only because they appear to have designed both the mirrorless APS-C mount and the mirrorless full-frame mount to natively control all of their respective DSLR lenses just as well as if they were native. When I put an EF-M lens on my the M100, the menu system presents me with controls like setting manual or auto focus, or image stabilization enable/disable. When I mount an EF-S lens, those electronic settings disappear from the menus, and the camera now responds and provides feedback on-screen when I enable or disable autofocus or image stabilization.

Canon seems to be counting on their mirrorless customers using native-mirrorless lenses and EF/EF-S lenses depending on what they wish to photograph. Canon also appears to have lucked-out from their decisions in the mid-eighties, since it appears that their EOS lenses as far back a the launch of the system remain fully compatible with the latest cameras as if they were designed and manufactured yesterday. I suspect this is part why Canon has not released many native lenses for either system, especially if buyers of their mirrorless offerings were buyers of their SLR/DSLR offerings, since those buyers may not want to re-buy similar performing lenses, so sales would be lackluster even if the lenses existed.

If that's their logic then it's fairly sound. What it seems to have done is led to them focusing their attention on small lenses, pocketable lenses. Both the 15-45mm kit lens and the 22mm lens are tiny. New-to-Canon customers may well be satisfied with these physically tiny lenses until they really get into photography, and at that point, it might not matter that they have to use an EF to EFM adapter, since the setup is still smaller than a DSLR anyway.

 

[ronlane]

Canon might be releasing more for their mirrorless brand, but lets not forget that they've a huge library of EF lenses for their regular DSLRs. Those lenses are already top of their game and chances are that updates for them don't generate huge sales because those who already have them are unlikely to upgrade so quickly when the existing models are already very top grade. The mirrorless market is newer and so there's more scope to add specific brand lenses and products to it because there isn't anything else out for it. I'd be surprised if Canon dropped their DSLRs entirely. Instead I can see them contract the focus on product lines and new product lines and camera lines instead of spreading their attention thin like they had started to do.

Overread, I understand what you are saying here and agree that they won't just abandon the DSLR market. But from what I am seeing out of the R mount stuff that Canon is putting out, that is 100% the future of the camera. To me they are getting images out of the R mount f/4 glass what they needed f/2.8 or higher on the EF mount glass. The images I have seen from the 24-105mm f/4 R mount lens is every bit as good as even the EF mount 24/70mm f/2.8 (or my Sigma EF mount 24-70mm f/2.8 Art lens).

Yes, it will take some time and serious $$$$ to switch from my EF stuff to the R mount but one more camera body iteration and I may just be ready to switch. (I really would like to have a body with 2 card slots, even a CF Express and SD slot together would be good.)

 

[malling]

Canon might be releasing more for their mirrorless brand, but lets not forget that they've a huge library of EF lenses for their regular DSLRs. Those lenses are already top of their game and chances are that updates for them don't generate huge sales because those who already have them are unlikely to upgrade so quickly when the existing models are already very top grade. The mirrorless market is newer and so there's more scope to add specific brand lenses and products to it because there isn't anything else out for it. I'd be surprised if Canon dropped their DSLRs entirely. Instead I can see them contract the focus on product lines and new product lines and camera lines instead of spreading their attention thin like they had started to do.

I'm not so sure about that, if only because they appear to have designed both the mirrorless APS-C mount and the mirrorless full-frame mount to natively control all of their respective DSLR lenses just as well as if they were native. When I put an EF-M lens on my the M100, the menu system presents me with controls like setting manual or auto focus, or image stabilization enable/disable. When I mount an EF-S lens, those electronic settings disappear from the menus, and the camera now responds and provides feedback on-screen when I enable or disable autofocus or image stabilization.

Canon seems to be counting on their mirrorless customers using native-mirrorless lenses and EF/EF-S lenses depending on what they wish to photograph. Canon also appears to have lucked-out from their decisions in the mid-eighties, since it appears that their EOS lenses as far back a the launch of the system remain fully compatible with the latest cameras as if they were designed and manufactured yesterday. I suspect this is part why Canon has not released many native lenses for either system, especially if buyers of their mirrorless offerings were buyers of their SLR/DSLR offerings, since those buyers may not want to re-buy similar performing lenses, so sales would be lackluster even if the lenses existed.

If that's their logic then it's fairly sound. What it seems to have done is led to them focusing their attention on small lenses, pocketable lenses. Both the 15-45mm kit lens and the 22mm lens are tiny. New-to-Canon customers may well be satisfied with these physically tiny lenses until they really get into photography, and at that point, it might not matter that they have to use an EF to EFM adapter, since the setup is still smaller than a DSLR anyway.

There aren’t allot of Costumers out there who are going to buy pro lenses to begin with. Most costumers have always bought the smaller, cheaper lenses and not the high end stuff. High end lenses has always been reserved for pros and crazy hobbyists. with a shrinking market where fewer and fewer enter the camera world, fewer will make that transition, in a downward spiral of death.

Allot of it has to due with the massive improvement in hardware as well as a better and smarter point and shoot software than found in dSLR and Mirrorless, so most don’t benefit of making the transition unless they are going to make 4k videos. We can’t really neglect the fact that smartphone has reduced the gap considerably for someone who only shoots in auto mode, and with the bulkiness of these it ain’t making it easier.

I also believe this plays an important part in the on going trend of shrinking cameras and reducing weight, it doesn’t make a hell lot of sense to launch the direct opposite of where the demand is and where the directions of the trend is going. Just look at Nikon they have done everything they possibly can to reduce the size and weight of their stand zoom lens, the 24-70 F2.8 is considerably lighter and smaller then most competitors and their marketing also like to point that out. It falls right in line with the trend to stop the ongoing decline, you need to make substantial smaller and lighter products to get people on board, or else they are gonna stick with smartphone or jump the Go Pro wagon.

Secondly there is no reason to improve or launch new EF-s lenses if there isn’t a demand for it, and it’s unlikely many would cash out for a new version, most pros doesn’t do it until their old lens is worn down or they drip it. Who else is going to buy a new EF-S lens? Most new photographer go in the mirrorless direction, unless they want to photograph action and wildlife.

They are only investing where they can make profit and that is small lightweight Mirrorless systems and lenses. Although Sony has launched pro lenses you don’t really see them launch allot of them or for that matter very often, you can go figure why that is so.

 

[beagle100]

Canon might be releasing more for their mirrorless brand, but lets not forget that they've a huge library of EF lenses for their regular DSLRs. Those lenses are already top of their game and chances are that updates for them don't generate huge sales because those who already have them are unlikely to upgrade so quickly when the existing models are already very top grade. The mirrorless market is newer and so there's more scope to add specific brand lenses and products to it because there isn't anything else out for it. I'd be surprised if Canon dropped their DSLRs entirely. Instead I can see them contract the focus on product lines and new product lines and camera lines instead of spreading their attention thin like they had started to do.

I'm not so sure about that, if only because they appear to have designed both the mirrorless APS-C mount and the mirrorless full-frame mount to natively control all of their respective DSLR lenses just as well as if they were native. When I put an EF-M lens on my the M100, the menu system presents me with controls like setting manual or auto focus, or image stabilization enable/disable. When I mount an EF-S lens, those electronic settings disappear from the menus, and the camera now responds and provides feedback on-screen when I enable or disable autofocus or image stabilization.

Canon seems to be counting on their mirrorless customers using native-mirrorless lenses and EF/EF-S lenses depending on what they wish to photograph. Canon also appears to have lucked-out from their decisions in the mid-eighties, since it appears that their EOS lenses as far back a the launch of the system remain fully compatible with the latest cameras as if they were designed and manufactured yesterday. I suspect this is part why Canon has not released many native lenses for either system, especially if buyers of their mirrorless offerings were buyers of their SLR/DSLR offerings, since those buyers may not want to re-buy similar performing lenses, so sales would be lackluster even if the lenses existed.

If that's their logic then it's fairly sound. What it seems to have done is led to them focusing their attention on small lenses, pocketable lenses. Both the 15-45mm kit lens and the 22mm lens are tiny. New-to-Canon customers may well be satisfied with these physically tiny lenses until they really get into photography, and at that point, it might not matter that they have to use an EF to EFM adapter, since the setup is still smaller than a DSLR anyway.

There aren’t allot of Costumers out there who are going to buy pro lenses to begin with. Most costumers have always bought the smaller, cheaper lenses and not the high end stuff. High end lenses has always been reserved for pros and crazy hobbyists. with a shrinking market where fewer and fewer enter the camera world, fewer will make that transition, in a downward spiral of death.

Allot of it has to due with the massive improvement in hardware as well as a better and smarter point and shoot software than found in dSLR and Mirrorless, so most don’t benefit of making the transition unless they are going to make 4k videos. We can’t really neglect the fact that smartphone has reduced the gap considerably for someone who only shoots in auto mode, and with the bulkiness of these it ain’t making it easier.

I also believe this plays an important part in the on going trend of shrinking cameras and reducing weight, it doesn’t make a hell lot of sense to launch the direct opposite of where the demand is and where the directions of the trend is going. Just look at Nikon they have done everything they possibly can to reduce the size and weight of their stand zoom lens, the 24-70 F2.8 is considerably lighter and smaller then most competitors and their marketing also like to point that out. It falls right in line with the trend to stop the ongoing decline, you need to make substantial smaller and lighter products to get people on board, or else they are gonna stick with smartphone or jump the Go Pro wagon.

Secondly there is no reason to improve or launch new EF-s lenses if there isn’t a demand for it, and it’s unlikely many would cash out for a new version, most pros doesn’t do it until their old lens is worn down or they drip it. Who else is going to buy a new EF-S lens? Most new photographer go in the mirrorless direction, unless they want to photograph action and wildlife.

They are only investing where they can make profit and that is small lightweight Mirrorless systems and lenses. Although Sony has launched pro lenses you don’t really see them launch allot of them or for that matter very often, you can go figure why that is so.

small pocket-size Canon M6ii - 30 FPS, AF, ability to easily use DSLR lenses
no question that mirrorless has "taken over' the camera market

 

[TWX]

small pocket-size Canon M6ii - 30 FPS, AF, ability to easily use DSLR lenses
no question that mirrorless has "taken over' the camera market

Especially if they continue to bundle the EF/EF-S to EF-M adapter with their mirrorless cameras.

There's a EOS M3 local to me for $200. I can't deny that there's a temptation to go get it even though I really don't need it, especially since it doesn't come wth an EVF.

I'll probably wait and pick up a used M6-II in a few years, assuming that Canon continues to develop new cameras around that sensor and some M6-II customers decide to upgrade and sell-off their existing cameras for added ancillary features.