We do all agree that MicroFourThirds created a new category of digital cameras. But how should we call that kind of system cameras with no mirror?
Dpreview calls them ILC = Interchangeable Lens Compacts
Imaging Resource calls them SLD = Single-Lens Direct-view cameras
Than we have EVIL = electronic viewfinder interchangeable lens camera
and mirror-less interchangeable lens camera
Now it is your turn:
[poll id=”21″]
31 Responses
EVIL is cool 😀 but ILC sounds more ‘official’.
Perhaps someone at Photokina can tell us 😀
I think you need to correct something
ILC Interchangeable Lens Camera
Add MILC Micro Interchangeable Lens Camera
Add MMC Micro Multi Lens Camera
Good idea the Poll I have made one for who like the touch features of the G2 and G10
http://poll.pollcode.com/JXP
Why not just call them system cameras (or interchangeable lens cameras), since that’s what they are? In 99 cases out of 100 there is no point at all distinguishing mirrorless system cameras from system cameras having mirrors. (Remember that not all single-lens reflex cameras are system cameras!)
Interchangeable Lens Compact is out of question.
Compact camera neither means ’small, compact sized camera’ nor ’mirrorless camera’.
We simply seak about ‘compactness’ when body and the lens cannot be separated, that is, they are assembled in a compact (= not separable) way.
So ‘compact’ and ‘intechangeable lens’ are mutually excluded. 😀
But what about ILC = Interchangable Lens Camera?
EVIL is not good at all, if the camera does not offer an option for electronic viewfinder. like E-P1.
I think SLD makes a nice opposition without beeing totally unrelated to the established SLR term.
EVIL is bad for many reasons :), marketing first.
SLD is not accurate because more correct would be to call them DSLD as opposed to DSLR.
ILC ( interchangeable lens cameras ) is what they all are, both DSLRs and these nameless ones :). And you cannot call GH1 a compact …
So that leaves us with MILC, the least of all evils. Again too long, too technical and too far from DSLR.
A name, if needed at all, should be something that resembles DSLR, with one letter changed.
Leica has been making “mirrorless” compacts for almost a century 🙂
Got milc?
Like it. 🙂
That said, EVIL could work, depending on the definition of “viewfinder”. Is an LCD an “electronic viewfinder”?
Would Christians buy EVIL cameras?!
I suspect they’ll become so prevalent as the years go by that they may be called “intermediate” cameras – half way between compacts and DSLRs…
Anyway, what do Panasonic and Olympus called them?…
If you go back to Panasonic’s press release announcing the G1 in 9/08, they capitalized several phrases, like “Digital Interchangeable Lens Camera,” “Full-time Live View,” and “Interchangeable Lens System Camera.”
So add DILC, FLV and ILSC to the choices.
Now I’m sure they’re kicking themselves they didn’t pick one simple name and stick with it, since it seems that “EVIL” has become the term most widely recognized. If you say “MILC” I think most people just go “huh?”
Anyway ILC can mean “interchangeable lens camera”—not just “compact” (the G1 was not not exactly compact).
And EV can mean “electronic viewing,” if you insist that a viewfinder must have an eyepiece.
About “EVIL” being bad marketing, yes… But remember we all say “Big Bang,” even though it was a semi-mocking term Fred Hoyle came up with (he didn’t believe in it). Don’t underestimate how powerful a punchy, memorable word can be.
EVIL sounds too, well, evil to be good in marketing terms! Besides, EV is known to be Electronic Viewfinder to many for some time.
Therefore, I propose SLIC for Single Lens Interchangable Cameras. (Besides, it sounds pretty ‘sleek” to me!!!)
This needs to be done right. “SLR”, for example, was a terrible name. It has been confusing and out of date for fifty years. “Single lens” meant in comparison to the earlier, now almost obsolete, double-lens Rolleiflex. But slr’s are of course mulltiple (interchangeable) lens cameras. “Mirrorless” is an absence; one day cameras with a mirror may be as out of date as the Rolleiflex. Better to say what is rather than what is not.
Key terms are words such as Direct (view), digital, interchangeable (lens), and perhaps Electronic.
This could lead to DDI, or DDIL.
(EVIL appeals to young males but is not a good idea, as others have noted).
Neither of them..
I would call
SLC = Single Lens Reflex…
DSLC= Digital Single Lens Compact
I like Sheps observation,
I think it would be more appropriate to describe the future of the next generation of cameras based on their primary characteristic. They allow the photographer to “see” the image on the sensor. No need to refer to a mirrorless configuration, as Shep noted it will be old technology.
I would call it
Direct Sensor View
or
Sensor Image Technology
Sensor Image View
Sensor Image
Sensor imaging
that’s it,
Sensor Imaging Cameras
SIC,
its catchy, like a cold. (Actually it is memorable in a better way than evil is)
Snowflake
EVIL is the most popular on the internet, among the living (according to my experience) even almost every post above includes this abbreviation despite the logical explanations. EVIL is simply the most… emotional one -) I like it best!
So let the EVIL rules 😉 😀
I vote for MILF (mirror-less interchangeable lens format). 🙂
I voted ILC, as in Interchangeable Lens Compact, but I’m not really satisfied with that. While ILC cameras are more compact than SLRs, they’re still quite bulky compared to compact P&S cameras. And I don’t like using relative terms.
If ILC is not to be, I suggest that whatever the eventual acronym is, it should NOT contain letters referencing any of the following terms: Digital, Camera, Single Lens, Reflex, Mirror. Digital is assumed in this day and age, and Camera would end up being redundant (if ILC were = Interchangeable Lens Camera, it would end up being called an “ILC camera”). Single Lens is an obsolete and confusing term, and references to Reflex or Mirror (as in Non-Reflex or Mirrorless) are defining the format in terms of what it is not, which will ultimately result in confusion such as that produced by the SLR acronym today.
EVIL is probably the most descriptive (and whether you like it or not, an LCD is a viewfinder), but a non-starter from a marketing perspective.
How about LVS = Live View System. A camera *system* (implying interchangeable lenses) that uses live view.
The PMDL, poor man digital leica 🙂
DSLM
Digital Single Lens Mirrorless
EVIL is a funny name. Turn it around and call it:
LIVE-camera referring to both the name LIVE-view and the elements:
Lens Interchangeable Viewfinder Electronic.
/Jan M
Clever, JanM !
No marketing department is about to describe their product as EVIL. But the elements are there, interchangable lenses + electronic viewing.
Turn it round to get LIVE as suggested by JanM above or ILEV = interchangable lens electronic view. EVF’s and rear monitor screens are both electronic.
Neither EVIL nor ILC sounds that good for the industry to adapt it.
I can understand SLD with its resemblance to SLR.
But let’s present another choice:
SHC = SYSTEM HYBRID CAMERA
It starts with s like SLR.
DSC = Digital Still Camera?
DHC = Digital Hybrid Camera!
Any camera willbecome digital, so skip the D as digital.
Is it necessary to tell it has interchangeable lenses?
Not, if you tel it’s a system!
Not necessary to talk about viewfinder and mirrors, that conceptually sublevel.
I vote for DHC or SHC!
My vote goes to SLD, but I think Large Sensor, Interchaingeable Lenses (LSIL) has its merits too…
I hope admin will do recap at the end and create a unique 43rumors.com name for these cameras, but at the moment the best sounding names to me are:
DSV, Direct Sensor View by snowflake
LIVE, Lens Interchangeable Viewfinder Electronic by JanM
Also, all references to single lens should be avoided: upcoming 3D cameras and lenses are essentially a dual-lens configuration.
I think Reverse Stream Swimmer is on the right track. The whole point of getting rid of the mirror is improved video function (the Panny G1 skipped video just to be the first to market).
I’d suggest DHS – Digital Hybrid System.
Also, keep in mind that the term has to operate as a prefix, i.e. DHS-camera, DHS-lens, DHS-adapter, etc.
p.s. And if people balk at the overuse of the term “Hybrid” these days, and if camera makers take advantage of the technology to offer audio-only recording via on board or plug-in microphones, an alternative could be:
DMS – Digital Multimedia System
These acronyms has no sense and no interest because these cameras are not cameras, they are also camescopes.
It is thus necessary to find a name which works in both universes.
“Hybrid” seems to me a coherent choice.
Dave-in-Mi, I’m not sure it’s accurate to say that “the whole point of getting rid of the mirror is improved video function.” That was one reason of several (reduction in size, reduced mechanical complexity, benefits of EVF among the others).
I don’t really care for “hybrid” because it only raises the question “hybrid of what?” And Digital Multimedia System is really vague. Any digital camera (hell, any cell phone) today can shoot both video and stills and could be considered a DMS.
This whole argument is pretty pointless. The only people who even care about what term to use are camera geeks like those who frequent this site, dpreview.com, imaging-resource.com, etc. Even if Panasonic, Olympus, Samsung and Sony all get together and decide that all mirrorless interchangeable-lens cameras will collectively be called XYZs, if some non-gearhead walks into a camera shop and sees a G1 and asks what kind of camera it is, telling him it’s an XYZ isn’t going to help because you’re still going to have to explain. Most of these people don’t really know what an SLR is except maybe “big expensive cameras, the kind that pros use.”