25 days to Nikon throwing the towel as the defender of the DSLRagainst the onslaught of mirror-less.
 

On 2018-07-29 03:08, RichA wrote:
About time. They and Canon were about as tardy to mirror-less as Disney was to DVD.


I never understood well why a digital camera needed a mechanical mirror.

--
Cheers, Carlos.

25 days to Nikon throwing the towel as the defender of the DSLR against the onslaught of mirror-less.
 

In article , Carlos E.R.
wrote:

I never understood well why a digital camera needed a mechanical mirror.

the same reason film cameras did, so that the viewfinder has an optical
path through the lens.

while digital viewfinders are much better than they used to be, they
are still not as good as a ttl optical viewfinder, particularly with
sports and low light. there is also no battery drain with an optical
viewfinder and focusing is faster.

25 days to Nikon throwing the towel as the defender of the DSLR against the onslaught of mirror-less.
 

On Jul 29, 2018, Carlos E.R. wrote
(in article ):

On 2018-07-29 03:08, RichA wrote:
About time. They and Canon were about as tardy to mirror-less as Disney was
to DVD.

I never understood well why a digital camera needed a mechanical mirror.

Digital cameras never did need a mechanical mirror.

It just made sense for the SLR manufacturers to engineer their analog systems
for digital conversion, so most of their development for the last 35 years
had them thinking mirrors. Unfortunately for them Olympus, Panasonic,
Fujifilm, Sony, and even Hasselblad leaped ahead in MILC development. That
left Nikon and Canon trailing by at least 3 years, and Nikon has the
additional issue of having to workout a fix for making legacy Nikkor glass
work on whatever MILC they eventually release.

--

Regards,
Savageduck

25 days to Nikon throwing the towel as the defender of the DSLR against the onslaught of mirror-less.
 

In article .com,
Savageduck wrote:

I never understood well why a digital camera needed a mechanical mirror.

Digital cameras never did need a mechanical mirror.

slrs do.

It just made sense for the SLR manufacturers to engineer their analog systems
for digital conversion, so most of their development for the last 35 years
had them thinking mirrors. Unfortunately for them Olympus, Panasonic,
Fujifilm, Sony, and even Hasselblad leaped ahead in MILC development.

except when physics gets in the way.

That
left Nikon and Canon trailing by at least 3 years, and Nikon has the
additional issue of having to workout a fix for making legacy Nikkor glass
work on whatever MILC they eventually release.

it's a different segment.

25 days to Nikon throwing the towel as the defender of the DSLRagainst the onslaught of mirror-less.
 

On 29/07/18 15:00, Carlos E.R. wrote:
On 2018-07-29 03:08, RichA wrote:
About time. They and Canon were about as tardy to mirror-less as Disney was to DVD.


I never understood well why a digital camera needed a mechanical mirror.


Me neither. The whole point of a "DSLR" was being able to lose the "SLR"
bit. To me the term "DSLR" tended to suggest a digital with removable
lens camera rather than a fixed assembly, more than it strictly being a
true "SLR"

Perhaps in the early days when super high res eye pieces and back
displays were infeasible, it made sense. But now Panasonic can stick a
hi res display into an eyepiece and on the back, it's all a bit irrelevant.

Not to mention these days, you want the electronics seeing the image all
the time for continuous tracking of various attributes (focus, exposure etc)

25 days to Nikon throwing the towel as the defender of the DSLRagainst the onslaught of mirror-less.
 

On 2018-07-29 16:38, nospam wrote:
In article , Carlos E.R.
wrote:

I never understood well why a digital camera needed a mechanical mirror.

the same reason film cameras did, so that the viewfinder has an optical
path through the lens.

while digital viewfinders are much better than they used to be, they
are still not as good as a ttl optical viewfinder, particularly with
sports and low light. there is also no battery drain with an optical
viewfinder and focusing is faster.

And shooting slower. The mirror has to be moved, takes time.

--
Cheers, Carlos.

25 days to Nikon throwing the towel as the defender of the DSLR against the onslaught of mirror-less.
 

In article , Tim Watts
wrote:

Perhaps in the early days when super high res eye pieces and back
displays were infeasible, it made sense. But now Panasonic can stick a
hi res display into an eyepiece and on the back, it's all a bit irrelevant.

except when it isn't.

an electronic viewfinder will never be as fast as optical. the
electronics adds latency. it may be 'good enough' in most cases, but
not all.

Not to mention these days, you want the electronics seeing the image all
the time for continuous tracking of various attributes (focus, exposure etc)

slrs do exactly that, long before there was digital.

25 days to Nikon throwing the towel as the defender of the DSLRagainst the onslaught of mirror-less.
 

On 2018-07-29 16:38, nospam wrote:
In article , Carlos E.R.
wrote:

I never understood well why a digital camera needed a mechanical mirror.

the same reason film cameras did, so that the viewfinder has an optical
path through the lens.

while digital viewfinders are much better than they used to be, they
are still not as good as a ttl optical viewfinder, particularly with
sports and low light. there is also no battery drain with an optical
viewfinder and focusing is faster.

And the digital display is actually seeing what the "film" is seeing. It
might in fact apply the digital processing that the final photo is going
to get so that the photographer can best decide on settings and timing.

The point of the SLR was that the photographer would see the same as the
film was going to see. Well, the digital display is one step further on
that road.

And as Tims points out, there can be a display inside the eyepiece instead.

--
Cheers, Carlos.

25 days to Nikon throwing the towel as the defender of the DSLR against the onslaught of mirror-less.
 

In article , Carlos E.R.
wrote:

I never understood well why a digital camera needed a mechanical mirror.

the same reason film cameras did, so that the viewfinder has an optical
path through the lens.

while digital viewfinders are much better than they used to be, they
are still not as good as a ttl optical viewfinder, particularly with
sports and low light. there is also no battery drain with an optical
viewfinder and focusing is faster.

And shooting slower. The mirror has to be moved, takes time.

so does flushing the sensor prior to the photo and then tripping the
shutter, usually using a mechanical shutter. electronic shutters may
work in some cases but can have all sorts of problems in others.

pro sports photographers, who can use whatever camera they want, choose
slrs because it's faster than mirrorless.

https://www.adorama.com/alc/wp-conte...utterstock_152
803373-2.jpg
https://fotoblog.hu/wp-content/uploads/2016/08/587168650.jpg

nothing is perfect in every situation.

25 days to Nikon throwing the towel as the defender of the DSLR against the onslaught of mirror-less.
 

In article , Carlos E.R.
wrote:

I never understood well why a digital camera needed a mechanical mirror.

the same reason film cameras did, so that the viewfinder has an optical
path through the lens.

while digital viewfinders are much better than they used to be, they
are still not as good as a ttl optical viewfinder, particularly with
sports and low light. there is also no battery drain with an optical
viewfinder and focusing is faster.

And the digital display is actually seeing what the "film" is seeing. It
might in fact apply the digital processing that the final photo is going
to get so that the photographer can best decide on settings and timing.

except that a digital display is delayed versus pure optical.

it takes time to read the data off the sensor, process it and send it
to the display.

the latency is shorter than it used to be and won't matter for still
life, but *will* matter for sports or other action photography as well
as very low light.

The point of the SLR was that the photographer would see the same as the
film was going to see. Well, the digital display is one step further on
that road.

it's on a different road, with different tradeoffs.

And as Tims points out, there can be a display inside the eyepiece instead.

there can, but it will never be as good as pure optical, at least not
until the laws of physics are overturned, which isn't going to happen
any time soon.

for example, try using a digital viewfinder in extremely low light.
either it blacks out because the light level is too low, the frame rate
drops to compensate or it amplifies what it can 'see' and the
viewfinder is too noisy to be of much use.

with an optical viewfinder, your eyes adjust.

there is also no battery drain with an optical viewfinder (or heat).