CanonWatch summed up an IR interview with Canon and it’s clear how Canon sees little value yet in offering a Full F rame mirrorless. The main issue they have is that FF mirrorless isn’t really compact if you look at the camera+lens size. And certainly if you look at the Sony FE lens offerings you really cannot say they are MUCH smaller than DSLR lenses.
Yoshiyuki Mizoguchi from Canon said:
In terms of how we view the role of mirrorless, first it’s within the EOS framework that we’re talking about. There was obviously the need to pursue smaller products that were more lightweight. So we kind of view the EOS mirrorless cameras from that perspective to begin with. It’s not just looking in terms of solely as a mirrorless product, but within the interchangeable lens camera segment. We kind of view it as playing a role within that … sort of an extended view, as a means of achieving a more compact, lightweight product. There was obviously the question of whether or not, within the regular DSLR format, there was a demand for lighter, smaller products. You know, there are various approaches on that, but this is a means for us to address that issue within sort of the EOS universe.
Well let’s see if Canon is just hiding their cards yet…
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In a general context Canon is absolutly right. Bigger sensors needs bigger lenses. Lengths and dimentions need to follow each other if you want comparable products.
All notable actions to shrink total size breaks comparability.
– Remove the mirror box and you loose optical VF.
– Remove the VF altogheter and you must use the screen to compose the image
– Remove the screen and you loose that opportunity as well
– Shrinking sensor size
– Shrinking aperture
– Shrink zoom ratio
– Shorten the tele
– Replace zoom with prime
– Reduce battery size
– Remove buildt in flash
That said there is little room for shrinkage without altering comparability. Some people don’t use all theese features and would like to see some of them removed or reduced. Some don’t. Thats why there will continue to exist different choises. Mirrorless won’t replace dslr, it will just find its market balance with it.
“And certainly if you look at the Sony FE lens offerings you really cannot say they are MUCH smaller than DSLR lenses.”
For general purpose photography, yes.
Still, the Sony A7 + 35mm or 50mm lens is a much smaller package than e.g. Canon 5D with a similar lens mounted.
But that basically goes back to what I was saying all the time: FF is hampered down by the lenses. And Canon right now is in the worst position: stepping away from the L lenses would be for them a suicide in the market. But for as long as they stick to the biggish L lenses, small FF camera doesn’t make sense to them. And that’s were the Sony comes…
The lenses are not the problem, really. As the photographers are already adapted to the fact that if you want Canon, Nikon OR even Sony 35mm camera, then you need to have a HUGE lens.
The problem is that professionals that are targeted by Canon/Nikon has not just multiple lenses, they have as well multiple bodies!
And if you can fit 2-3 bodies to space of one, it is huge saving.
Professional photographers for sports and wildlife usually have very long telephoto lenses like 400-500mm f/4 range and some might even have a 400mm f/2.8. Those are giant lenses that cost a lot and are pain to carry and use without monopod or swing on tripod. Such are usually paired with a 70-200mm f/4 or f/2.8 and then with 24-70mm. Just so they can get covered all possible situations just by swapping camera, instead just lens.
And now if you carry 2-4 Canon 1D body or Nikon D2-4 body, you have alone few kilograms more weight than when compared what Sony A7 line bodies offer.
But rugged body is great for sports and wildlife in harsh environments, I would not take A7 body to any outdoor sports or wildlife situation as they are just too small.
Canon or Nikon can not make a new lens lineup for mirrorless. They don’t even need to do that!
Just look at the bodies, they are just fine for specific kind professionals, but not for amateurs or semi-professionals or even for hobby photographers. That is where Sony has directed their A7 line, to studio work, to landscape, fashion etc.
Canon and Sony should take 1D and D4 bodies, remove the mirror, remove the OVF and replace it with EVF with 0.82x magnification (current ones 1D X has 0.76x magnification and D4s has 0.7x, compare that to E-M1 0.74x and X-T1 0.78x in equivalent size). Olympus OM-1 and OM-2 had 0.92x magnification, so big and large that you had difficulty to already see whole frame, why OM-3 toke it down to 0.84x. If you have never handled those old Olympus bodies, you never have seen a huge large 35mm viewfinder. As next ones is then on medium format cameras. And EVF makes possible to make huge magnification as there isn’t mirror limiting size.
Canon and Nikon should then start using on sensor PDAF, the quality doesn’t suffer with interpolating the few pixels, that is already proofed by Olympus. No more back/rear focusing problems or calibrating the lenses.
The liveview in EVF would blow sports and wildlife photographers minds off, when they could see actually in any situation what they are shooting and how the photo will look like.
The only thing that required to be solved is to get the sensor feed continual video to EVF even when frames are captured. This would eliminate ANY frame dropping between shots and even mirror would look bad as it does cut off similar way. There is a technic and it is to show double frames instead blackout, as the black EVF is worse than double, the eye see the black very disturbing manner. And that is the mirror benefit as the eye doesn’t really see black as the light is coming to eye even when mirror is already almost up so the bright view with same level blocked view looks non-disturbing.
Canon and Nikon with mirrorless copies with current pro bodies would allow to use current lenses. They don’t need to be smaller. The mirrorless benefit isn’t just the size, it is the technology in the cameras. A wildlife photographer would love a smartphone controller, camera on close to the animals usual place and then just trigger shots with focus-on-tap feature, in silent mode where animal doesn’t even hear that it is being photographed.
The thing just is that Olympus has been innovating photography cameras for decades, PEN, OM, Zuiko lenses, OM-D, Digital PEN. Innovating far more than Canon or Nikon. But yet they have not gone to the same rugged body as Nikon and Canon went as those screams the “I am professional!”.
Like compare a old OM Zuiko lenses sizes to anything you get today to other 35mm formats, and Zuikos were smaller and lighter all the ways. A 300mm f/4 lens is so small and compact that you carried it with you anywhere. 28 f/2.8 or 50mm f/1.8, 100mm f/2.8 or 50mm f/.3.5 Macro etc were so small that they are like m4/3 lenses.
Then later Canon and Nikon could start bringing mirrorless variants of their consumer bodies, and start then refreshing their lens lineup with the the newer smaller lenses that are only for mirrorless models.
I somewhat agree with Canon The very fact that Sony has no zooms faster than F4 is very telling. I do not expect Sony will do any f2.8 zooms due to weight
Physics just do not allow small FF fast zooms Although I think they can shrink the lenses a bit more Sony is putting IBIS in the A7 which is a great idea as that allows them to not have IS in the lens thereby allowing lens to be a bit smaller and lighter
Olympus has masters IBIS so it can be done. However a 70-200 F2.8 will never be small and light and compact We all need compact at times so the key is to improve compacts especially in low light and shallow DOF if that is physically possible
It is very frustrating to be a Sony A7 owner due to lack of lenses. I did tell folks to hold off but ignored my own words :). Yes there are few nice primes but no Fast zooms so it is back to my Nikon for that need
Just bit over 10 years ago all decent quality compact cameras were full frame, and nobody complained for the size, now we have alternative ways if you really need something tiny (smartphones) Canon is protecting the “class” of DSLR as being most profitable… When in the history of photography before we have to pay for prosumer body over $3000 and were enticed to upgrade it every three years? Right just keep encouraging Canon’s brutal politics. Good news is that is not working so well anymore.
10 years ago compact cameras that were full frame also were never really expected to be blown up past a 8×12 on a good day.
I recently sold all my Canon Gear and switched to the Sony A7 and A7r. The IQ is superior to the Canon due to Sony’s sensor technology. As far as the lenses are concerned my 70-200 mm f4 is in fact smaller and lighter than the Canon lens I had. I thought at the time that the F4 was going to be limiting but as it turned out the exceptionaly low noise of the sensors allows me to just shoot with the iso one stop faster. I have compered my shots with ones taken with the canon lens and quite honestly the sony does a better job on both sharpness, noise, and resolution. The difference in bokeh is undetectable.
Replacing the Canon 70-200 f/2,8 with a 70-200 f/4 would have saved you lots of space and weight too, with equaly undetectable change in bokeh. The rest is mostly atributted to sensor performance at low ISOs (New Canon sensors competes very well at high ISOs compared to same size Sony sensors.)
I hope some company will prove this claim wrong by producing the digital version of Olympus XA or Minox ML
Take a FF DSLR. Removing the screen will save space and enable a smaller battery. Remove the mirror box, prism and VF too, and replace it with a miniature rangefinder VF. Remove tele from the 24-70 f/2,8, remove wide angle too and replace it with a slightly wide prime. Don’t make it large aperture for a prime. Remove buttons, wheels and finger grip. Reduce the battery further. Remove cable connectors and weather sealing. Remove the flange at both the camera and lense and glue they toghether.
There you have it. 🙂 Easy to make it in theory, but who would buy a camera like that today?
Sony RX1
> Olympus XA or Minox ML
The cameras had 2.8/35mm lens. Now go to any FF forum and say that you wish for a fixed lens camera with a f/2.8 lens. You would be immediately flamed down, because the crowd considers anything f/2.0/darker to be simply unacceptable. Sad, but true.
Reminds me of another market leader in the smartphone industry who said big phones were silly and pointless. We all know what that particular market leader released last quarter. A bunch of smoke to keep their users from jumping ship. It’s inevitable Canon will have to release a mirrorless full frame camera. Especially if they intend to keep their promise and become mirrorless market leader by 2017.
Wow! They still think the main advantage of mirrorless is size. If they are sincere, they’re not just behind with their product line, they’re also behind in their understanding of the benefits of this technology shift.
Feel free to explane what more then size mirrorless is about.
The first and foremost advantage is: less mechanical parts.
Same as why devices now have SSDs instead of hard disks, or LCD screens instead of CRT tubes. Why we use SD cards to store data instead of cassette tapes. etc…
Simen, Mike provided you with an advantage for manufacturers. For consumers, the big step forward is represented by the interface – the EVF, which can now display helpful data such as focus peaking, art filter preview, exposure warnings, etc. The size is a nice side effect but even if mirrorless wouldn’t be smaller than DSLRs, I’d still prefer to use them over DSLRs because of the EVF. Once you start making use of all the benefits that an EVF provides, it will be very hard to go back to a plain OVF.
Or to put it more succinctly: mirrorless are about the move from plain viewfinders to smart viewfinders.
hmm.
http://bit.ly/1EGTmRX
well yeah.. they don’t.
Please don’t hide the URL. It’s hiding any hints about a possible malware URL.
What a load of bunk. Back in the film days there were wonderful 35mm bodies. Combined with a nice prime lens they had a great form factor: large enough to be comfortable to operate, yet small enough to take with you everywhere and not get tired from carrying it.
People have gotten lazy. With DSLRs and zoom lenses, people have gotten used to gigantic cameras with gigantic lenses. They get the job done but they are a pain to carry. There is nothing more annoying than carrying a DSLR with zoom lens with you.
Mirrorless 35mm proposes an elegant solution. We go one step up in technology (no mirror box and EVF instead of OVF), and at the same once again there can be cameras of the same great form factor as in the old film days. Of course the deal only works if you use prime lenses, just like in the film days. Prime lenses are better anyway.
The tech is not yet mature enough to fully beat mirror-based AF and OVFs, but it will get there in 2-3 years, no doubt about that.
Reading specifically the interview comments, Canon’s mindset is stuck in the SLR genre, it relates everything to its own EOS regime and sees mirrorless as a sub-species. This is not the reality. It is not – mirrorless OR SLR: that’s what Canon would have you believe. There is only one basic species, the ILC: replacing the mechanical mirror box with electronics is a natural progression which has benefits for maker and consumer alike – Canon isn’t prepared to pass on those benefits when it can milk high-profit SLR lenses to infinity using its marketing power to ensure the older technology holds back the newer. Nor is size an issue, only a by-product.
Canon simply doesn’t GET IT, and doesn’t want to get it, even to the extent of introducing a new motor to cushion mirror vibrations. We see the market shrinking from the advance of smartphones because the “old guard” has no wish to embrace the pace of technological development.
They ignored software and kept putting out the same type of P&S cameras until a software manufacturer showed the world that cameras can be bundled with other devices in much more intelligent and practical ways. The surprising thing is that they have not learned anything from this story and they still think that their products are fine as they are.
To make me interested I would have to see 50+MP.
Pol