{"id":45811,"date":"2018-08-25T23:05:09","date_gmt":"2018-08-26T03:05:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/neilvn.com\/tangents\/?p=45811"},"modified":"2020-06-15T19:49:43","modified_gmt":"2020-06-15T23:49:43","slug":"advantages-of-mirrrorless-cameras-over-dslrs","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/neilvn.com\/tangents\/advantages-of-mirrrorless-cameras-over-dslrs\/","title":{"rendered":"Advantages of Mirrrorless cameras over DSLRs"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Advantages of Mirrrorless cameras over DSLRs<\/h1>\n

There has been such an increasing buzz in the past few years, you’d easily think this is all hype. And you would be correct, at least partially. I mean, masterful works of photographic art have been created over the years with lesser cameras than we have available today.\u00a0There are several things which make the experience of using mirrorless cameras different than DSLRs. Whether these differences add up to advantages that make a difference, will depend on your needs as a photographer.<\/p>\n

So what then would be the advantages Mirrorless cameras have over DSLRs … and is there anything we’d even need in our photography?<\/p>\n

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Silent shutter \/ Electronic shutter<\/h2>\n

In a previous article we discussed the advantages and disadvantages of the silent \/ electronic shutter<\/a>. The benefit of a silent shutter will be very obvious to anyone who has ever photographed a corporate event or a wedding ceremony. Wildlife photographers will especially embrace this. Imagine, you could fire off rapid bursts of frames without disturbing the animal you are observing.<\/p>\n

The photo above was taken during a memorial service at Arlington Cemetery. The sound of a camera clicking away would have been intrusive to a huge degree. With the\u00a0Fuji X-H1<\/a> \u00a0(B&H<\/em><\/a> \/ Amazon<\/em><\/a>), using the silent \/ electronic shutter, there was absolutely no sound. With this camera the mechanical shutter itself is pretty quiet, but the ceremony here needed absolute silence from the camera.<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t\t\tThe disadvantage of the electronic shutter, is that we can get the “rolling shutter” effect when we pan the camera. This is due to how the sensor scans the scene.<\/p>\n

It can also lead to banding, as this example below will show. \u00a0(This photo also appears in the linked article on Electronic shutter vs mechanical shutter<\/a>.)<\/p>\n

The sensor readout of the Sony A9<\/a>\u00a0(B&H<\/a><\/em> \/ Amazon<\/em><\/a>) is 1\/160th of a second, and is much faster compared to the slower readout of the Sony A7R III and Sony A7 III (1\/40th sec). This means the Sony A9 camera will be much less prone to this unfortunate side-effect.\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>

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Focusing accuracy and speed<\/h2>\n

There is an essential difference in how DSLRs focus, vs how Mirrorless cameras achieve focus. Mirrorless cameras use the data directly from the actual sensor to achieve focus, instead of a separate AF module. This leads to greater accuracy, and a larger area covered by the AF sensors.<\/p>\n

There are two different systems that modern cameras use to acquire auto-focus – Phase Detection, and Contrast Detection.<\/p>\n

DSLRs use phase detection to acquire focus – there is an AF module in the mirror-box of the camera that senses light from a secondary mirror. It is fast and accurate, but alignment errors can happen.<\/p>\n

Contrast Detection is measured off the sensor itself. This gives great accuracy. However, phase detection can be sluggish. You’ve seen how slow AF can be when you switch your camera to Live View mode.<\/p>\n

The most recent mirrorless cameras use a combination of the two as a Hybrid Autofocus system – you get the speed of phase detection, and the accuracy of contrast detection.<\/p>\n

The other implication of measuring focus off the sensor itself, is shown in mirrorless cameras having a much larger area of the scene that is covered by the AF sensor points. With mirrorless cameras, the multitude of AF points cover something like 90% of the viewable screen. Using off-center focusing points are more accurate than you can expect with most DSLRs. DSLRs also tend to have the AF points grouped around the middle of the screen.<\/p>\n

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