Like all good manifestos, I’m going to ramble a bit here mixing discussion of specific gear with some general observations on mirrorless cameras. I’m going to focus on my personal experiences with Canon and Sony gear. I know there are lots of other stuff out there, but I believe my generalizations hold up. I’m also consciously not factoring prices into this discussion. The Sony gear is a little pricier at full retail than the Canon gear that I’m comparing it too, but capabilities and size where what really drove my purchase decisions.
Earlier this year I sold off some old Canon APS-C/EF-S gear and bought a Canon SL1 body, Canon’s smallest and lightest DSLR. My current main cameras are full frame Canon DSLR’s and I wanted a smaller and cheaper kit for commuting to the day job or running around with the family: the everyday, take anywhere, stuff in a bag and don’t worry about it too much camera (that still has decent enough image quality). I have been mirrorless-curious for a while, but the allure of leveraging my investment in Canon glass steered me towards the SL1 since Canon doesn’t have any serious mirrorless offerings. For me, anything that fits in my Think Tank Mirrorless Mover 10 case can easily be crammed into a backpack or a diaper bag as I’m running out the door and counts as a small kit. The SL1 fit the bill; mounting the EF-S 24mm pancake yields a very small kit with a great all-around focal length and fast enough 2.8 aperture, and the SL1 with the EF-S 18-55mm kit lens just makes the cut for size (see my previous post).
The SL1 gets the job done. The size and image quality are fine. But I just don’t get excited shooting with it. It feels cheap. It feels like a huge compromise to save size and weight. Also, I eventually realized that I never use my better full frame EF glass with the SL1. The EF-S lenses are smaller and lighter with more sensible focal lengths on the APS-C crop factor. Not being that thrilled with Canon’s offerings in the small and light category, a significantly discounted open box deal on a Sony a6000 that I came across a couple months ago proved too good to pass up.
I’ve long been impressed by Sony’s Exmor sensor technology. If you haven’t been paying attention, they’ve significantly reduced read noise and thus increased dynamic range by moving analog to digital conversion onto the chip. It didn’t take long to appreciate this increase in dynamic range; I noticed it easily with backlit scenes where the backgrounds retain much more detail. Sony’s excellent sensor technology doesn’t really have anything to do with mirrorless design though. You can get these benefits in Sony-equipped Nikons, afterall. So what have I found to be the big advantages and disadvantages of going mirrorless?
Size (neutral). It seems so much of the mirrorless discussion focuses on size, which I don’t understand. Sure, mirrorless bodies are marginally smaller. The SL1 is indeed 25% heavier than the a6000 and somewhat taller and thicker, though the width is about the same.
SL1 and a6000 size comparison.
However, the 25% difference between these two bodies amounts to 82 grams — not going to break my back. There was a bigger difference comparing Sony’s first A7 generation with pro-level DSLR’s, but that gap has all but disappeared with the second A7 generation. There’s only so much to gain by making smaller/lighter camera bodies. So much of the weight and bulk of a kit is in the glass, and this is where I’m less enthusiastic about Sony, at least for native lenses.
Sure, Zeiss makes some very high quality but expensive full frame lenses for the E mount, and there are some gems in the Sony/Zeiss full frame lineup. Sony’s mid to low end options tend to have flaws and rely too much on in-body corrections though. Take, for example, the Sony FE 28mm f2 lens that I bought as a slightly wide standard lens (to match the Canon pancakes that I’ve grown accustomed to): it’s quite sharp, decent in most other regards, but suffers from a simply massive amount of distortion for a prime lens. I also wanted a lens akin to the Canon 18-55mm kit zoom — wide to normal zoom with image stabilization. The Sony 18-55mm f3.5-5.6 is generally derided, so after much consternation I ended up shelling out for the Sony/Zeiss FE 16-35mm F4. It’s a beautiful piece of glass but the whole size/weight/price idea goes out the window when I’m carrying it. I never used my Canon 16-35 with the SL1, but the a6000 and Sony/Zeiss 16-35mm is a bit smaller and does fit in the Mirrorless Mover case. So it does make a nice, compact, video capable, diaper-bag-compatible rig, though it is a bit awkward.
The Sony 16-35mm package is a little less absurd.
Where you really can save weight and size with a mirrorless kit is if you move to a smaller sensor, i.e. Micro Four Thirds, and invest in a complement of native lenses. With a smaller sensor to cover, the lenses can, in theory, be smaller without compromising image quality. However, smaller sensors result in a larger depth of field for a given subject and lens, not to mention the impacts of small pixel pitch on noise, dynamic range and diffraction. It works for some, but those aren’t tradeoffs I’m willing to make in most situations.
Legacy Lenses (big positive). Coincidentally, as I was sorting out the mirrorless landscape I was also really getting back into film photography and picking up a few Canon FD lenses for my old AE-1 film SLR. Legacy lenses! Room for adaptors, now there’s a reason to go mirrorless. Of course the Leica lenses that everyone lusts after are pretty obscenely priced, but there are some less sexy but very decent and affordable old lenses out there. For manual or zone focusing, there’s nothing like the feel of dedicated manual focus lenses, and there’s really something to gain by stripping away some technology, simplifying your technique, and focusing on vision and composition, at least as an occasional exercise. The recent addition of in-body image stabilization to the Sony lineup is an exciting development, as it eliminates a big drawback of vintage lenses.
Long live Canon FD!
Exposure Aids (big positive). This was the unexpected one for me. Unless I’m using live view for critical focus, I’m using a viewfinder. I almost always shoot in full manual mode and the ability to overlay histograms and overexposure indication (zebra patterns) in the viewfinder significantly improves my exposure accuracy. Exposure simulation in the viewfinder also eliminates any tendency to get caught up in the moment and forget to adjust exposure, a trap which I do fall into from time to time.
Focus Peaking (positive). One of the capabilities that I was really excited to try out on the a6000 was focus peaking (highlighting high contrast edges to indicate in-focus regions). This is certainly a useful tool, particularly with manual focus legacy lenses. In practice, though, I’ve found that there are limitations. Not all in-focus areas have sharp edges and it’s not always easy to locate the sharpest focus where desired. So far I don’t nail focus quite as frequently as I had hoped for.
Electronic Viewfinder (neutral). While overlaying exposure and focus aids in the electronic viewfinder is a huge plus for me, I still appreciate the qualities of an optical viewfinder when I move back to shooting with a DSLR. For sports and fast action I’m still going to want a traditional DSLR in my quiver for the foreseeable future.
Start Up Speed (disadvantage). When the a6000 puts itself to sleep I definitely notice a lag in waking it back up. This isn’t a problem in slow paced situations like landscape photography, but it can be a bummer when trying to grab quick images for event or street photography. It may be that I just need to retrain myself to wake the camera up before bringing the viewfinder to my eye.
There are a few additional subjects worth mentioning. The a6000 shoots a blazing 11fps, which speaks for itself, it’s awesome. All the electronic displays sucking power from undersized batteries means mirrorless systems generally don’t have great battery life. Since I use the a6000 more occasionally, this hasn’t been a problem for me. Ergonomically, the a6000 isn’t that great. The feel of the body in my hands is ok, but the controls don’t feel as solid and comfortable as I’m used to on my Canons, but that’s more specific to this particular design than a knock on mirrorless cameras overall.
In summary, I’m finding very real and significant advantages with the move to mirrorless. The ability to overlay information in the viewfinder and legacy lens compatability are big pluses. But size and weight advantages are way overhyped. The a6000 is reasonably affordable, fun to shoot and highly capable. Canon isn’t competing in this space at all (or Nikon). If the latest improvements to phase detection autofocus on the A7RII are as good as Sony claims, enabling quick autofocus of third party lenses, then a lot of photographers will have little reason not to move to Sony bodies. I may always have at least one DSLR around for action, but if Canon continues to lag behind Sony in sensor technology and Sony bodies can autofocus my Canon lenses well, I find it hard to imagine a scenario where my next camera body purchase isn’t from Sony. Canon really seems to be dropping the ball.
I’ll finish by providing a few comparison shots between the SL1 with 24mm f2.8 pancake and a6000 with the Sony FE 28mm f2. These are default raw conversions in Lightroom with no adjustments or lens corrections and standard screen output sharpening. In good light both kits produce perfectly fine images. There are some differences in automatic white balance and saturation, but nothing that simple adjustments couldn’t match. I’m not going to bother with posting full resolution images — these get the point across.
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All photographs copyright 2015 Joseph P Kenny.
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Edited Oct 20 2015: add affiliate links
Thank you for this wonderful and informative report!