{"id":841,"date":"2012-07-28T21:39:49","date_gmt":"2012-07-29T04:39:49","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/thelawlers.com\/Blognosticator\/?p=841"},"modified":"2012-07-28T21:39:49","modified_gmt":"2012-07-29T04:39:49","slug":"the-idea-of-a-mirrorless-camera-good-and-bad","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thelawlers.com\/Blognosticator\/?p=841","title":{"rendered":"The idea of a \u201cmirrorless\u201d camera \u2013 good and bad"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I have a very nice Canon professional camera. I love it. But it\u2019s really noisy when the shutter is activated. It makes a clop-snap sound that is sometimes unacceptable to the circumstances. When I was photographing the Festival Mozaic concerts last week it was unacceptable. I have a few strategies for dealing with this. One is to wrap the camera and lens in a sweater, which helps quite a bit. Another is to shoot only in the fortissimo parts, which is even harder because you have to anticipate these and not goof.<\/p>\n

Sony has pioneered a number of professional cameras that are correctly called mirrorless SLR cameras. They use a partly-reflective mirror that remains in place in front of the image sensor, and does not move for exposure. This, of course, takes a small toll on the amount of light that strikes the sensor, but with the sensitivity of sensors these days, it\u2019s probably unimportant (except in very low light).<\/p>\n

Nikon and others have come to market with \u201cmirrorless\u201d cameras in the last year, and these seem to be successful. They take good photos, and they are perhaps mis-named. Canon announced their first \u201cmirrorless\u201d camera last week, a camera that looks an awful lot like one of their point-and-shoot cameras, but with interchangeable lenses, and the ability to accept almost all of the company\u2019s pro lenses.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Canon\u2019s EOS-M \u201cmirrorless\u201d camera looks more like a point-and-shoot than a pro camera, and it is. But it is a silent, 17+ megapixel camera that accepts most Canon lenses.<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

At first I thought, \u201cwhat the heck, all point-and-shoot cameras are mirrorless,\u201d and in fact this one is a 2\/3 size sensor camera body without a pentaprism viewfinder. The camera uses an LCD viewfinder on the back and has no optical viewfinder at all. Canon and others argue that this constitutes \u201cmirrorless\u201d and I am loathe to disagree. But I want an optical viewfinder.<\/p>\n

The benefit of such a camera would be its silence \u2013 no mirror slapping and no shutter curtain snapping. The problem with a camera that has no optical viewfinder is that I can\u2019t use them to compose photos very well. I have tried with my Canon T2i camera, and it\u2019s extremely difficult for me. In daylight I can\u2019t see the viewfinder well enough to focus, and that is the greatest weakness of this new camera from Canon. At the Bonneville Salt Flats two years back I tried, fruitlessly, to photograph race cars with the T2i in broad daylight. I couldn\u2019t see a thing on the viewfinder, so I built a cardboard viewfinder-extender and taped it to the back of the camera. This provided me with a bit better view of things, but it was still nearly impossible.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

The newly-announced Canon EOS-M camera fitted with the Canon 70-200 mm f2.8 zoom lens. The idea of putting a large professional lens on a camera like this intrigues me. It would make classical music concert photography much more practical because of its silence.<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

A benefit is that the lenses that I already own will work on this new camera (with an optional lens mount adapter), and I welcome that. I would buy one just to use for photography at concerts with one of my long lenses. Such a camera would be a delightful alternative to shooting with my noisy 1ds Mark III camera.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

From the top-down, the same camera and lens combination shows the optional lens mount adapter on the camera that allows the big lenses to be mounted on the new camera.<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

I would welcome some version of a true mirrorless SLR from Canon, one without a mirror that moves out of the way for the photos to be taken. In the short term, the new mirrorless camera from Canon will make a difference to me. Maybe I will join the ranks of zillions who have pre-ordered the new camera from Canon.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I have a very nice Canon professional camera. I love it. But it\u2019s really noisy when the shutter is activated. It makes a clop-snap sound that is sometimes unacceptable to the circumstances. When I was photographing the Festival Mozaic concerts … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9,11,10],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-841","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-new-technology","category-people","category-photography"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thelawlers.com\/Blognosticator\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/841","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thelawlers.com\/Blognosticator\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thelawlers.com\/Blognosticator\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thelawlers.com\/Blognosticator\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thelawlers.com\/Blognosticator\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=841"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/thelawlers.com\/Blognosticator\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/841\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":846,"href":"https:\/\/thelawlers.com\/Blognosticator\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/841\/revisions\/846"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thelawlers.com\/Blognosticator\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=841"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thelawlers.com\/Blognosticator\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=841"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thelawlers.com\/Blognosticator\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=841"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}