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The Sony alpha line is moving agressively in that direction, and that includes all the nice glass and other bits of a system going back to the very first autofo

by pedrocr 13y ago

The Sony alpha line is moving agressively in that direction, and that includes all the nice glass and other bits of a system going back to the very first autofocus SLR (Minolta's). The lineup today no longer has SLRs they are all SLTs, with a fixed semi translucent mirror just for the phase-detected focusing system. The optical viewfinder was replaced by a screen fed from the sensor. The (very well confirmed) rumors are that they will be doing away with the mirror completely, and going full mirrorless. Without the mirror there the extra space should allow for all kinds of fun adapters to other systems. Their existing mirrorless sytem (NEX) is also moving fast. They are about to announce a SLR-shaped camera and the rumor is they will be moving NEX to full-frame and adding in-body antishake at the same time. When it comes to high-end mirrorless Sony is the one to watch.

eftpotrm 13y ago
Willing to be persuaded otherwise, but the major win of mirrorless for me is scale. A mount can lose its mirrors but the flange distance is still based around a mirror box so there's no win there. NEX is nice in some ways but I'm not convinced the site difference with a standard kit zoom mounted between an NEX and a Nikon D3200 is worth a system switch.
- pedrocr 13y ago
  NEX currently sucks because it has no good compact lenses, so as you say I don't see the appeal of it versus a normal SLR. For me the real credible story of a good mirrorless system would be something that I can mount a fast small prime to and have a compact kit and yet also have the option of mounting a 70-400. For the alpha the mirror box space being empty is a huge gain for people that want to make adapters. Suddenly a Nikon adapter becomes possible when before it wasn't because there simply wasn't enough space. If I was Sony I would do the alpha mirrorless by keeping the same mount but moving it back, removing the mirror box space. Traditional lenses would be mounted with an extension tube to mimic the mirror box distance and you could build extension tubes that switched the camera mount to Canon/Nikon/Olympus/whatever.

by pedrocr 13y ago

eftpotrm 13y ago

Willing to be persuaded otherwise, but the major win of mirrorless for me is scale. A mount can lose its mirrors but the flange distance is still based around a mirror box so there's no win there. NEX is nice in some ways but I'm not convinced the site difference with a standard kit zoom mounted between an NEX and a Nikon D3200 is worth a system switch.

pedrocr 13y ago
NEX currently sucks because it has no good compact lenses, so as you say I don't see the appeal of it versus a normal SLR. For me the real credible story of a good mirrorless system would be something that I can mount a fast small prime to and have a compact kit and yet also have the option of mounting a 70-400. For the alpha the mirror box space being empty is a huge gain for people that want to make adapters. Suddenly a Nikon adapter becomes possible when before it wasn't because there simply wasn't enough space. If I was Sony I would do the alpha mirrorless by keeping the same mount but moving it back, removing the mirror box space. Traditional lenses would be mounted with an extension tube to mimic the mirror box distance and you could build extension tubes that switched the camera mount to Canon/Nikon/Olympus/whatever.