Are you Jumping on the Mirrorless Camera Bandwagon?

A Post By: Darlene Hildebrandt

With the increase in popularity of the smaller, more portable Mirrorless Four Thirds cameras I’m curious to see where you stand on this discussion. Personally I’m ready to jump on and get myself an Olympus OM-D EM-5, only thing holding me back as of now is justifying the cost of having a second camera.

I’m in the “I’m not ditching my full sized DSLR just yet” camp as I still use it for teaching and doing portraits. However the more travelling and photography tours I do, the more appealing the Olympus becomes. One of the guys on my Cuba tour had one and it took great images, and video as well! I was really impressed.

We could have this debate all day but some of the pros and cons generally tossed about include:

PROS of Mirrorless cameras:

• small and lightweight (that’s a given)
• you can pack more lenses in a small bag for travel
• less intimidating to people you photograph, especially when doing street photography
• ability to accept and use adaptors to fit just about any lens, including those from your DSLR
• the sensors in many of them rival DSLR APS-C sensors, and in the case of the Sony A7R they might even have the edge

CONS of Mirrorless cameras:

• they aren’t really any less expensive than the full sized DSLRs, in fact, in some cases they are more expensive. You pay for compactness
• they can be slower to focus, so shooting moving subjects is more challenging
• the electronic viewfinder – this is a bane of many DSLR owners who are used to seeing through an optical one
• because of the point above, they can be battery hogs

So – you tell me, where do you sit on this issue?

Are your feet firmly planted one side of the fence or the other? Or are you still on the fence, as yet undecided like our little friends here?

By KENNETH BARKER

By hehaden

By MALC

Are there greener pastures on the other side?

Is this where the future is taking us? Are full frame cameras obsolete? Who knows – but maybe I’ll see you over there!

By Stefan Tan

By Caroline