Mirrorless vs. DSLR

Sony A7 III

Nikon D850

This all-content, junk-free website's biggest source of support is when you use those or any of these links to my personally-approved sources when you get anything, regardless of the country in which you live. Use only the trusted sources I've used personally for decades for the best prices, service, return policies and selection. Thanks for helping me help you! Ken.

 

September 2018   Better Pictures   Canon   Nikon   Sony   Fuji   LEICA   All Reviews

 

Introduction

Adorama Pays Top Dollar for Used Gear

Amazon

B&H Photo - Video - Pro Audio

Crutchfield

I buy only from these approved sources. I can't vouch for ads below.

DSLR

A DSLR is a Digital Single-Lens Reflex camera.

"Reflex" refers to its mirror, which reflects light from the lens to a ground-glass viewing screen.

SLRs and DSLRs have done this since the 1930s so we can see and focus through our lens before we take our picture. This mirror snaps out of the way when we take the picture.

 

Mirrorless

Today mirrorless cameras can show us live images from the sensor, making mirrors, ground glass, Fresnel lenses, prisms and DSLRs all obsolete. Mirrors were only needed in olden days when we had no way other than ground glass to see what came through our lens until we developed our film.

Mirrorless cameras use a rear LCD and usually an electronic viewfinder to show us the live electronic image directly from the image sensor before the picture is taken.

Today's electronic finders are live; as of 2018 they no longer are visibly delayed and they aren't jerky. Wiggle your finger in front of one, and it looks live in the finder.

 

Electronic Finder Advantages

What You See is What You Get

DSLR finders only show what we're seeing. They can't show playback and they certainly don't give any idea as to what you're going to get. Electronic finders show how our photos will look, not requiring us to waste time playing them back later to see what we got.

Electronic finders are a huge advantage because mirrorless cameras show us exactly how our camera will render the final image (exposure, white balance, distortion correction, highlights, shadows, color balance and saturation, contrast, etc.) as we're shooting, while DSLRs couldn't show us any of that through their funky old optical finders.

The Canon EOS-R finder even shows the live image corrected for lens distortion to ensure precise framing, while DSLRs can't possibly predict this and will show parts of the image that are cropped after lens distortion correction.

If highlights are getting blown out or auto white balance isn't cutting it, we see this before we press the shutter in mirrorless.

I often set my white balance creatively, like to SHADE in the sunset shot below to turn what was a dull gray sunset into vivid orange, and my EOS-R showed me exactly this as I shot, complete with what detail I was getting in the silhouettes, with no need to play back. I could set my camera until I got exactly what I want, which is a silhouetted girl, with detail in the bright sunset and in the darker shadow in the wet sand in the foreground:

Canon EOS-R Sample Image

Girl in Sunset, Lahaina, Maui, September 2018. Canon EOS-R, Canon RF 24-105mm f/4L IS at 91mm, 1/500 at f/10 at Auto ISO 100, SHADE WB, Standard Picture Style, +4 saturation, exactly as shot as NORMAL JPG. bigger or camera-original © file.

I set my colors to insane, and I can see exactly what I'm getting as I'm composing. I never have to stop and play back to second-guess. I can see exactly how highlight, shadow, mid-tones and everything look as I'm making my shots. If my reds are blowing-out because I have the saturation set to +11, I'll see it as I'm shooting.

Hitting the PLAY button to see what you're getting after you've shot is so film era. Finally mirrorless lets us see, correct and optimize what we're doing while we're doing it. Having to stop and look at your developed film or a digital playback means you're living in the past (pun intended) and missing what's going on around you and missing great shots. With mirrorless you're always live and getting the shots the old-timers are missing while looking at their LCDs for yesterday's news.

 

Zoom Playback and Focus

A huge reason I love mirrorless is that I can see all my menus and playback in the finder, especially without needing glasses or a finder loupe to see a tiny rear LCD in direct sunlight, and that I can magnify the finder during shooting or playback to see explicit details under any condition.

I even can set my Canon EOS-R to magnify my active AF area automatically if I turn the manual focus ring!

 

High Speed Image Stability

Mirrorless finder images never black-out, jump or blur as you shoot at high frame rates. Only the iPhone and Sony A9 are this good today, but all mirrorless will catch up soon.

All DSLRs black-out as every picture is taken, and at high speeds a DSLR finder image starts to smear vertically from the mirror flapping up and down at ten frames per second or more.

 

Accurate and Useful Depth of Field Previews

DSLRs have crummy depth-of-field previews. To most people, all these buttons do is make the finder dark, so people never use the depth-of-field preview. Even for people who do, the finders get so dark as the lens stops down to its taking aperture that you can't see much.

Mirrorless finders don't darken with depth-of-field preview. They stay just as bright so we can see what we're really going to get. We can select the best aperture for how we really want our pictures to look before we press the shutter.

Mirrorsless cameras show exactly how the picture will look at very large apertures like f/1.4, while DSLR viewfinders have never shown how shallow the depth-of-field actually will be at apertures larger than about f/2.5.

Few people know that modern DSLR "bright" screens can't show the full amount of a lens' defocus at apertures wider than about f/2.5. If you use your preview button on a DSLR, you can't see the actual depth of field at apertures wider than f/2.5 on modern laser-cut matte screens (we haven't used actual ground glass since the 1970s), but today with my mirrorless, my f/1.2 and f/1.0 lenses show exactly how little is in focus in my finder.

If you think I'm kidding, take your f/1.8 or faster lens and try your preview button on your DSLR, and you won't see any change until you stop down to f/2.8 or smaller.

Yes, on a DSLR, all lenses faster than f/2.5 don't look any brighter or have any less depth of field in the finder than an f/2.5 lens does, while on the EOS-R for the first time we can see exactly how little is in focus with a fast lens.

 

Daylight Legible

While DSLR finders are bright in daylight, there's no good way to see a rear LCD in direct sunlight.

Mirrorless finders are bright and colorful under direct sunlight because you're looking in a shaded peephole, and you also can set menus and see playback in vivid detail in any light.

 

Night-Time Legible

While DSLR finders get dark in the dark, and are dark in daytime with slower zooms, mirrorless finders are always bright and full-color, even in the dark.

You might not know that human vision becomes monochrome in very dim light (we don't see colors outdoors under moonlight), while our film and digital pictures do show full color when exposed well.

Mirrorless finders show the same colors our pictures will show, while DSLR finders show the gray image our eyes see at night.

Heck, now that I have a Canon EOS-R, even indoors in daytime my 5DSR finder looks dim and dingy by comparison.

 

Finder Size

While electronic finders and DSLR finders look about as big (OK, my Canon EOS-R has a slightly bigger image than my Canon 5DSR's finder), any electronic finder looks huge compared to squinting at a tiny 3" LCD for playback on a DSLR.

 

Data Orientation

While we take it for granted that the data in a DSLR finder is tilted 90º when we shoot vertically, better mirrorless cameras like the Canon EOS-R magically rotate all the displays so we can read them when we hold the camera vertically.

 

Level Displays

DSLRs have crummy level displays in the finders, while mirrorless usually have very good color-coded level displays.

 

Night Stealth

Subjects can see the ground-glass of a DSLR through the lens. When a DSLR's AF zone lights in red, often the subject will see some red light coming through the lens if it's pointed at them at night.

No light comes out of a mirrorless lens from the sensor.

Of course either kind of camera has lighted indications in its finder which can light your face and make yo u visible to a subject in the dark if you don't use a blind properly.

 

Protects your Eyesight

When you point a camera at the sun, especially with long, fast lenses, you're not going to be blinded from an electronic finder — but you might with a DSLR's optical finder.

 

Autofocus

Full-Frame AF

There is no full-frame DSLR that lets us autofocus on the top, sides, bottom and corners for regular shooting.

Mirrorless cameras autofocus anywhere in the frame, a huge advantage, while DSLRs only autofocus near the center.

 

AF Speed

Mirrorless focuses as fast as DSLRs do. There is more variation between camera and lens models from each brand than there is between the two technologies.

 

AF Accuracy

Mirrorless cameras are much more accurate.

DSLRs have their AF sensors in the bottom of the camera, and look through the lens via a series of smaller sub-mirrors behind the main mirror. While there are AF Area indicators on the screen, the actual sensors are coupled via a few mirrors. Any tiny positional errors in any of the mirrors or AF sensor or image sensor all add up to errors between where the lens is focused and the image sensor.

Mirrorless camera AF sensors are part of the image sensor, so there is no error. That's why mirrorless cameras often have no AF FINE TUNE adjustments, and even of they do, rarely if ever need any adjusting.

Especially with fast f/1.2 and f/1 lenses, mirrorless cameras consistently get perfect focus of which I only dreamt with my SLRs and DSLRs. I know, I've been calibrating the mirrors in my 35mm SLRs since the 1980s to keep focus on film aligned with what I see in my finder.

Of course there's always the potential for error if the subject is moving or someone selected the wrong AF sensor, but if you use your camera correctly, there is no more autofocus error. Hallelujah!

 

AF Tracking

While mirrorless and DSLRs track similarly depending on how advanced is your camera, electronic finders do a far better job of showing you what the AF system is doing while it's doing it.

 

Size & Weight

Mirrorless bodies are smaller than DSLRs because they don't need mirrors and prisms, but the lenses are the same size and weight.

Once you add the same lenses you used to use with a DSLR, mirrorless systems become about the same size and weight.

In fact, new mirrorless lenses tend to be bigger and heavier than DSLR lenses because they're designed for even higher resolution to match future cameras.

Mirrorless doesn't have any size advantage when you consider the whole system. Mirrorless only gets small if you use but one or two small lenses, but not if you start bringing all your serious glass.

If you want small, Sony's A6000 with the tiny PZ 16-50mm lens is what I bought my own mom, and it's very inexpensive for a state-of-the-art camera with instant autofocus.

 

Battery Life

Mirrorless cameras usually use more battery power because they need to be on and processing images continuously anytime you're looking through them, while DSLRs mostly use power only as you take each picture.

However if you're taking long sequences of pictures at high frame rates, mirrorless cameras have more battery life because they aren't having to flip a reflex mirror continuously, which becomes a power-wasting fan.

Battery life is better in DSLR if you look through the finder more than you actually shoot, while mirrorless gives more shots per charge if you're shooting a lot of long sequences in continuous mode.

While DSLRs get between 800~3,000 shots per charge in actual use, I get between 300~7,500 shots per charge with mirrorless.

 

Silent Shooting

Mirrorless wins. Most better mirrorless cameras have silent modes. As of 2018 the best camera for this is the Sony A7 III, while most other have more restrictions on what features work or not in silent mode.

DSLRs can't shoot silently this except sometimes in their kludgey live-view (mirrorless) modes.

 

Cool Factor

Looking at your LCD while other people can see you means you still aren't ready to shoot, or that you don't know what you're doing, or that you lack the skill and confidence to have gotten the right shot in the first place.

It's OK to get everything set before you arrive on set, but if you lack the talent and experience to get the shot right and have to look at your screen to dial it in, I'm not hiring you to learn while on my job. I'll hire a pro next time.

This is another way mirrorless rules: you can do all this while looking through the finder, looking like you're shooting while in fact you're still trying to set up your camera.

I suggest you tape an ACROS 100 or Velvia box-end over the LCD so people think you're shooting film! The only time I use an LCD on a mirrorless camera is to show someone else what I shot, or if I'm working at a weird angle. Because my Canon EOS-R LCD flips 180º and just shows black plastic if you like, you can tape a box end over the back side and just flip it back to the LCD if I need it. Use a 120 or 220 box-end to confuse the hipsters.

 

Sports

At high frame rates, a DSLR mirror is flipping so wildly that the finder image is blurred vertically, and the finder is blacked-out a significant portion of time.

The best mirrorless cameras, like Sony's A7 III, A7 R III and A9 are so advanced that their finders don't black-out, don't blur and in the A9 don't even get jerky.

While the fastest sports camera today is the mirrorless Sony A9 which cheerfully runs at 20 FPS completely silently and does it with full tracking autofocus and exposure for each frame, some mirrorless cameras only run at their highest speeds with locked focus and exposure.

DSLRs have reached their peak in pro models like the Canon 1DX Mk II, while all mirrorless cameras are still getting better all the time. Heck, even the iPhone X cheerfully runs silently at 10 FPS and has the tools to let us select easily among all its shots.

 

Exposure Accuracy

Mirrorless cameras have better exposure accuracy because they always read the image directly from the image sensor, while DSLRs have to use a separate meter in the prism which has to guess before the picture is taken.

While most better DSLRs use color multi-segment meters, mirrorless cameras have far more zones and are seeing in the same color settings as the actual picture, and remove more potential for errors.

I get consistently perfect exposures in actual use from my mirrorless cameras, while all of my DSLRs regularly exposure compensation in certain circumstances.

 

© Ken Rockwell. All rights reserved. Tous droits réservés. Alle Rechte vorbehalten.

 

Help Me Help You

I support my growing family through this website, as crazy as it might seem.

The biggest help is when you use any of these links when you get anything. It costs you nothing, and is this site's, and thus my family's, biggest source of support. These places always have the best prices and service, which is why I've used them since before this website existed. I recommend them all personally.

If you find this page as helpful as a book you might have had to buy or a workshop you may have had to take, feel free to help me continue helping everyone.

If you've gotten your gear through one of my links or helped otherwise, you're family. It's great people like you who allow me to keep adding to this site full-time. Thanks!

If you haven't helped yet, please do, and consider helping me with a gift of $5.00.

As this page is copyrighted and formally registered, it is unlawful to make copies, especially in the form of printouts for personal use. If you wish to make a printout for personal use, you are granted one-time permission only if you PayPal me $5.00 per printout or part thereof. Thank you!

 

Thanks for reading!

 

 

Mr. & Mrs. Ken Rockwell, Ryan and Katie.

 

 

09, 25 September 2018, May 2014