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Canon Confirms We’ve Seen Its Last Flagship DSLR

66 points by conductor 5y ago

ekianjo 5y ago
it's a shame but the market has clearly shifted there, and mirrorless bodies bring technical advantages too.
throwawaysea 5y ago
For the uninitiated, does this have an implication in terms of quality of photo or video? Do DSLRs have some insurmountable advantages compared to mirrorless cameras?
- elliottkember 5y ago
  I think the original reason was that viewfinders were not very good, so you wanted to be able to look directly through the lens with a mirror.
  - andi999 5y ago
    Brightness was also a problem.
    - staticautomatic 5y ago
      Except for rangefinders.
- zinekeller 5y ago
  DSLRs were introduced at a time where portable displays were, in charitable terms, not par to broadcast or photography standards. However, the advances brought by smartphones and the consumers' desire for realistic color-accurate small displays means that small displays now can actually simulate everything* that was previously handled physically. Some might grumble with this and might have reservations like how the transition from film to digital photography left some people stick to film, but considering that most of the time the pictures taken are being looked at the exact same screens as smartphones have, it's not surprising that more and more photographers have traded weight reductions rather than dealing with a physical viewfinder. > For the uninitiated, does this have an implication in terms of quality of photo or video? The quality of the photo or video doesn't depend on whether it has mirrors or not (since that the mirror is solely used for viewfinder) but on the sensor, lens and the internal algorithms (if not taking raw shots for further processing). So practically none. > Do DSLRs have some insurmountable advantages compared to mirrorless cameras? A bit lighter (no more mirrors) and a bit more reliable (the mirror system is a physical component that can shatter when the camera is dropped), although if someone is using a relatively heavier lens then there's nearly no difference on that front. Some might hate the fact that the viewfinder is now a screen though. * Technically it isn't, but does that have a real practicable difference? Some may get annoyed, sure, but most will just ignore small differences.
  - guenthert 5y ago
    > For the uninitiated, does this have an implication in terms of quality of photo or video? Not sure about the current generation, I guess the problems have been surmounted, but originally, if you wanted to forgo the mirror you had to use the main sensor as viewfinder, powering it on continuously, thereby heating it, which caused higher noise.
    - zinekeller 5y ago
      > Not sure about the current generation, I guess the problems have been surmounted, but originally, if you wanted to forgo the mirror you had to use the main sensor as viewfinder, powering it on continuously, thereby heating it, which caused higher noise. Ah, I remembered this debate clearly. Technically, it's still there, but it was much worse 20 years ago where cooling techniques were also frankly not great (for certain current models, still not great).
  - Manuel_D 5y ago
    I've heard that the smaller flange distance of mirrorless cameras improves image quality. Or at least it lets lens makers delivery the same image quality with smaller and cheaper components, thus increasing image quality for the same price.
    - zinekeller 5y ago
      > Or at least it lets lens makers delivery the same image quality with smaller and cheaper components, thus increasing image quality for the same price. This is the correct interpretation, by removing parts it's now possible to reallocate the money (and R&D) to cheaper but more effective sensors and lenses.
- rwmj 5y ago
  Another question from someone who knows nothing: What are professional photographers using, like the sports photographers who hang around at the edge of soccer pitches with those enormous telephoto lenses? Are there still "pro DSLRs" or are they using mirrorless or something else?
  - regulation_d 5y ago
    Only within the last year have Sony, Nikon, and Canon released their flagship mirrorless cameras (the Alpha 1, Z9, and R3 respectively, though the R3 might be semi-flagship if R1 becomes a thing). From what I gather, before this generation of "stacked" sensors there would have been too much warbling from the rolling shutter to be truly useful for things like sports photography. So most sports stuff is probably still shot with DSLRs, but that will likely change in the coming years, as (a) mirrorless cameras can ostensibly shoot more quickly (b) photographers replacing their gear won't have much of a choice.
cultofmetatron 5y ago
The writing has been on the wall for awhile. I picked up a nikon z5 after a long haiatus from using dslrs. (for the last 5 years, I made due with just a google pixel) #1 thing you notice is the camera is much more compact. Video feed from the viewfinder is close to flawless. (on rare occasions, it lags) #2 exposure is wysiwyg. I can get an instant preview of the exposure of the image. Its like going from film to dslr in terms of feedback #3 autofocusing is SOOO MUCH BETTER. I can ove around a autofocus pin anywhere on the screen. its just a green square on a video overlay. I can also take advantage of eye tracking in real time. this is a game changer when shooting difficult subjects. Its not perfect but I can easily see it being flawless in a few more generations. #4 this one is specific to nikon but mirrorless gave them the opportunity to rethink the lens mount and lens ecosystem. The lenses sit much closer to the sensor so wide angle lenses can be made MUCH lighter. It also means larger theoretical aperture sizes. Nikon has a new manual focus lens that stops down to f0.95! Additionally, a lot of the things that were downsides of mirrorless have been mitigated as technology has caught up. Battery usage for instance has been an issue with mirrorless systems as they are always on to power the viewfinder. DSLRs by comparison sip power since they only draw a lot of power while taking the photo. I can easily get a full day out of one battery and they are easy to swap so I always walk around with 2-3 backups. Never needed to use them. When I flick it on its pretty close to instant. I wont say its as good as a dslr but Im not using their flagship either. I hear their new z9 is insanely fast. All in all, I'm very happy with switching to mirrorless
dwohnitmok 5y ago
The convenience of mirrorless with no reduction in image quality really made this change basically inevitable. But there is something rather sad for me about this eventually spelling the end of the EF lens line. There was something really magical about being able to use any EF lens on pretty any Canon SLR camera body, even going back to 1987 for either the lens or the camera, with at most a reduction in the automatic feature set. You could get an old hand-me-down and mix-and-match with the newest equipment and keep using it. (There was also the dark side of this, where Canon intentionally kept the electronic connection proprietary to make it more difficult for third-party lens makers to compete) You can still use lens adapters, but nothing quite beats the psychological satisfaction of picking up a 30-year-old lens and sticking it on a brand-new dSLR with no modifications required at all, or taking a modern lens and sticking it on an old-school film SLR.
- oliwarner 5y ago
  I'd buy a mirrorless with a traditional sensor format in a heartbeat. Making me consider new lenses or adaptors is making me stick dSLR for longer than I'd really like.
peanut_worm 5y ago
Do supertelephoto lenses exist for mirrorless cameras?
- Schiendelman 5y ago
  Yes, several. If you ask a more specific question I’m happy to help!
- Manuel_D 5y ago
  Yes. Although big prime telephoto lenses (think 400 f2.8 and 600 f4) have yet to be released for the RF mount. I think a couple do for Sony. Adapting DSLR lenses to mirrorless cameras works well at least for EF -> RF adapters.
- vaidhy 5y ago
  yes and mft (Micro 4/3) is even better. I can get a 1600mm focal length in a tiny package - Panasonic body with 100-400 (makes it 200-800 mm equivalent) and with a 2x olympus convertor makes it a 400-1600 lens.
imagetic 5y ago
This is hardly news. We've all known this was coming, it just hadn't been formerly announced. I still don't find much functional advantage in Mirrorless, but technical improvements have made it really solid technology at this point. Video, low light autofocus and tracking has taken massive leaps forward. The sensor / image quality is relatively the same. Nikon removed the shutter from the Z9 (Disclaimer, I got mine last week). That's a huge leap nobody has been willing to take just yet. The biggest limitations at this point are codec/raw patent roadblocks for video and compression. It's a fun time for imaging technology. I completed my transition to mirrorless last week. Sad to see the old legendary hardware fade away, but the optics on modern glass are FAR superior to older F and EF mount lenses. It's just painful to move systems.
squarefoot 5y ago
Any recommendations for a model better than my little old Nikon S9100? I'm neither a photography expert nor a hobbyist but never liked using phones for photos, and the above old camera most of times does pretty much all I want in the Automatic position, so I certainly don't need a DSLR or anything professional, but the Magic Lantern software capabilities intrigue me, so I'd consider buying one, or a mirrorless one, possibly used. I'd happily trade megapixels with faster shutter and less noisy sensor, particularly in low light conditions. Any suggestions? Thanks!
- rwmj 5y ago
  Very happy with my mirrorless Fuji X-E3 with a f1.4 lens, although it was ridiculously expensive (about $2000 new altogether). It has a Sony sensor.
- Saris 5y ago
  A modern mirrorless from Panasonic/Sony/Olympus likely does basically everything that magic lantern does. They're so far ahead of DSLR bodies at this point. Sony full frame mirrorless is generally the go to if you want a large sensor with good low light capability, but they are pricey. Oly/panasonic both have a bunch of 4/3 sensor options, and lenses are interchangeable, although optical image stabilization doesn't work as well when mixing lens and body brands.

66 points by conductor 5y ago

it's a shame but the market has clearly shifted there, and mirrorless bodies bring technical advantages too.

For the uninitiated, does this have an implication in terms of quality of photo or video? Do DSLRs have some insurmountable advantages compared to mirrorless cameras?

elliottkember 5y ago
I think the original reason was that viewfinders were not very good, so you wanted to be able to look directly through the lens with a mirror.
- andi999 5y ago
  Brightness was also a problem.
  - staticautomatic 5y ago
    Except for rangefinders.
zinekeller 5y ago
DSLRs were introduced at a time where portable displays were, in charitable terms, not par to broadcast or photography standards. However, the advances brought by smartphones and the consumers' desire for realistic color-accurate small displays means that small displays now can actually simulate everything* that was previously handled physically. Some might grumble with this and might have reservations like how the transition from film to digital photography left some people stick to film, but considering that most of the time the pictures taken are being looked at the exact same screens as smartphones have, it's not surprising that more and more photographers have traded weight reductions rather than dealing with a physical viewfinder. > For the uninitiated, does this have an implication in terms of quality of photo or video? The quality of the photo or video doesn't depend on whether it has mirrors or not (since that the mirror is solely used for viewfinder) but on the sensor, lens and the internal algorithms (if not taking raw shots for further processing). So practically none. > Do DSLRs have some insurmountable advantages compared to mirrorless cameras? A bit lighter (no more mirrors) and a bit more reliable (the mirror system is a physical component that can shatter when the camera is dropped), although if someone is using a relatively heavier lens then there's nearly no difference on that front. Some might hate the fact that the viewfinder is now a screen though. * Technically it isn't, but does that have a real practicable difference? Some may get annoyed, sure, but most will just ignore small differences.
- guenthert 5y ago
  > For the uninitiated, does this have an implication in terms of quality of photo or video? Not sure about the current generation, I guess the problems have been surmounted, but originally, if you wanted to forgo the mirror you had to use the main sensor as viewfinder, powering it on continuously, thereby heating it, which caused higher noise.
  - zinekeller 5y ago
    > Not sure about the current generation, I guess the problems have been surmounted, but originally, if you wanted to forgo the mirror you had to use the main sensor as viewfinder, powering it on continuously, thereby heating it, which caused higher noise. Ah, I remembered this debate clearly. Technically, it's still there, but it was much worse 20 years ago where cooling techniques were also frankly not great (for certain current models, still not great).
- Manuel_D 5y ago
  I've heard that the smaller flange distance of mirrorless cameras improves image quality. Or at least it lets lens makers delivery the same image quality with smaller and cheaper components, thus increasing image quality for the same price.
  - zinekeller 5y ago
    > Or at least it lets lens makers delivery the same image quality with smaller and cheaper components, thus increasing image quality for the same price. This is the correct interpretation, by removing parts it's now possible to reallocate the money (and R&D) to cheaper but more effective sensors and lenses.
rwmj 5y ago
Another question from someone who knows nothing: What are professional photographers using, like the sports photographers who hang around at the edge of soccer pitches with those enormous telephoto lenses? Are there still "pro DSLRs" or are they using mirrorless or something else?
- regulation_d 5y ago
  Only within the last year have Sony, Nikon, and Canon released their flagship mirrorless cameras (the Alpha 1, Z9, and R3 respectively, though the R3 might be semi-flagship if R1 becomes a thing). From what I gather, before this generation of "stacked" sensors there would have been too much warbling from the rolling shutter to be truly useful for things like sports photography. So most sports stuff is probably still shot with DSLRs, but that will likely change in the coming years, as (a) mirrorless cameras can ostensibly shoot more quickly (b) photographers replacing their gear won't have much of a choice.

cultofmetatron 5y ago

The writing has been on the wall for awhile. I picked up a nikon z5 after a long haiatus from using dslrs. (for the last 5 years, I made due with just a google pixel) #1 thing you notice is the camera is much more compact. Video feed from the viewfinder is close to flawless. (on rare occasions, it lags) #2 exposure is wysiwyg. I can get an instant preview of the exposure of the image. Its like going from film to dslr in terms of feedback #3 autofocusing is SOOO MUCH BETTER. I can ove around a autofocus pin anywhere on the screen. its just a green square on a video overlay. I can also take advantage of eye tracking in real time. this is a game changer when shooting difficult subjects. Its not perfect but I can easily see it being flawless in a few more generations. #4 this one is specific to nikon but mirrorless gave them the opportunity to rethink the lens mount and lens ecosystem. The lenses sit much closer to the sensor so wide angle lenses can be made MUCH lighter. It also means larger theoretical aperture sizes. Nikon has a new manual focus lens that stops down to f0.95! Additionally, a lot of the things that were downsides of mirrorless have been mitigated as technology has caught up. Battery usage for instance has been an issue with mirrorless systems as they are always on to power the viewfinder. DSLRs by comparison sip power since they only draw a lot of power while taking the photo. I can easily get a full day out of one battery and they are easy to swap so I always walk around with 2-3 backups. Never needed to use them. When I flick it on its pretty close to instant. I wont say its as good as a dslr but Im not using their flagship either. I hear their new z9 is insanely fast. All in all, I'm very happy with switching to mirrorless

dwohnitmok 5y ago

The convenience of mirrorless with no reduction in image quality really made this change basically inevitable. But there is something rather sad for me about this eventually spelling the end of the EF lens line. There was something really magical about being able to use any EF lens on pretty any Canon SLR camera body, even going back to 1987 for either the lens or the camera, with at most a reduction in the automatic feature set. You could get an old hand-me-down and mix-and-match with the newest equipment and keep using it. (There was also the dark side of this, where Canon intentionally kept the electronic connection proprietary to make it more difficult for third-party lens makers to compete) You can still use lens adapters, but nothing quite beats the psychological satisfaction of picking up a 30-year-old lens and sticking it on a brand-new dSLR with no modifications required at all, or taking a modern lens and sticking it on an old-school film SLR.

oliwarner 5y ago
I'd buy a mirrorless with a traditional sensor format in a heartbeat. Making me consider new lenses or adaptors is making me stick dSLR for longer than I'd really like.

peanut_worm 5y ago

Do supertelephoto lenses exist for mirrorless cameras?

Schiendelman 5y ago
Yes, several. If you ask a more specific question I’m happy to help!
Manuel_D 5y ago
Yes. Although big prime telephoto lenses (think 400 f2.8 and 600 f4) have yet to be released for the RF mount. I think a couple do for Sony. Adapting DSLR lenses to mirrorless cameras works well at least for EF -> RF adapters.
vaidhy 5y ago
yes and mft (Micro 4/3) is even better. I can get a 1600mm focal length in a tiny package - Panasonic body with 100-400 (makes it 200-800 mm equivalent) and with a 2x olympus convertor makes it a 400-1600 lens.

imagetic 5y ago

This is hardly news. We've all known this was coming, it just hadn't been formerly announced. I still don't find much functional advantage in Mirrorless, but technical improvements have made it really solid technology at this point. Video, low light autofocus and tracking has taken massive leaps forward. The sensor / image quality is relatively the same. Nikon removed the shutter from the Z9 (Disclaimer, I got mine last week). That's a huge leap nobody has been willing to take just yet. The biggest limitations at this point are codec/raw patent roadblocks for video and compression. It's a fun time for imaging technology. I completed my transition to mirrorless last week. Sad to see the old legendary hardware fade away, but the optics on modern glass are FAR superior to older F and EF mount lenses. It's just painful to move systems.

squarefoot 5y ago

Any recommendations for a model better than my little old Nikon S9100? I'm neither a photography expert nor a hobbyist but never liked using phones for photos, and the above old camera most of times does pretty much all I want in the Automatic position, so I certainly don't need a DSLR or anything professional, but the Magic Lantern software capabilities intrigue me, so I'd consider buying one, or a mirrorless one, possibly used. I'd happily trade megapixels with faster shutter and less noisy sensor, particularly in low light conditions. Any suggestions? Thanks!

rwmj 5y ago
Very happy with my mirrorless Fuji X-E3 with a f1.4 lens, although it was ridiculously expensive (about $2000 new altogether). It has a Sony sensor.
Saris 5y ago
A modern mirrorless from Panasonic/Sony/Olympus likely does basically everything that magic lantern does. They're so far ahead of DSLR bodies at this point. Sony full frame mirrorless is generally the go to if you want a large sensor with good low light capability, but they are pricey. Oly/panasonic both have a bunch of 4/3 sensor options, and lenses are interchangeable, although optical image stabilization doesn't work as well when mixing lens and body brands.