Full Frame Mirrorless vs Full Frame DSLR Cameras
14th February 2017
AH! The classic battle between Full Frame Mirrorless and DSLR. But which one is better?
1. Size & weight
Verdict: Mirrorless wins here
One major reason professional photographers are moving onto mirrorless systems is the compactness of it all. Lugging around a huge tank-like f/2.8 200mm telephoto lens attached to a monstrous lunchbox sized full frame camera body sucks, period. We may not be able to do much about the lens besides choose something smaller, but why carry a heavy camera body when we don’t really need to?
For most of us hobbyist photographers, travel and landscape photographers, photographers on the move, and those who don’t usually shoot in-doors, we may want to travel as light as possible but still want 36 megapixels of full frame goodness. In these situations you’ll be happy you decided to choose mirrorless camera over the full frame DSLR.
2. Lenses
Verdict: DSLR wins here
This is where Canon and Nikon DSLRs dominate. Because they’ve sat on this DSLR and lens manufacturing market for so long, the number of lenses out there for these brands just mind boggling. You could probably get away with using a Nikon/Canon to Sony mount adaptor for your Sony mirrorless camera, but all in all if you want the best possible lens choice go with a DSLR from Nikon or Canon.
3. Viewfinders
Verdict: DSLR wins here, just slightly.
Mirrorless cameras as the name suggests don’t have mirrors inside unlike their DSLR cousins. Instead they use electronic view finders, which projects an image from the sensor to the eye much like looking at a computer screen. Although this system has some perks like being able to display a histogram with the image, battery power is drained twice as fast, and the image can look pixalated in low light conditions.
DSLRs on the other hand use a mirror or an “optical viewfinder” so that the scene is seen as it is, not as a electronic representation of it. There is no lag or pixalation of the image. For this very reason most photographers prefer the optical system and checking the image on the LCD after taking the shot.
Each to their own, my choice is DSLR.
4. Autofocus
Verdict: Mirrorless wins here
DSLRs use the ‘phase detection’ autofocus system fitted below the mirror inside the camera body. But these only work whilst the mirror is down. If you’re using a DSLR in live view mode, the mirror needs to be flipped up and the regular AF module is no longer in the light path. At this point, DSLRs need to switch to the slower contrast AF system using the image being captured by the sensor.
Most mirrorless systems use the ‘hybrid’ AF systems combining contrast AF with phase-detection. This in on all the time and allows for a speedy autofocus and if enabled, subject tracking, an awesome little feature.
5. Continuous shooting
Verdict: Mirrorless wins here
You need a fast continuous shooting mode to capture action shots. This is where mirrorless wipes the floor with DSLR cameras. By design, the mirror inside a DSLR camera needs to move before an image can be captured. This means the rate for continuous shooting is limited by quickly the mirror moves in a DSLR system.
With a mirrorless system, there is no moving mirror inside allowing for a higher continuous shooting speed.
6. Video
Verdict: Mirrorless wins here
4K video is the way of the future. TVs are coming out being 4K supported, Youtube has G’ed up to supporting 4K and the standard movie quality is changing to 4K. DSLR were slow to offer this, not to mention their AF system which falls behind to mirrorless.
Mirrorless with their light weight, awesome autofocus capability and 4k offering are the way forward for video. In particular the Sony A7S II which is optimised for shooting video.
7. Features
Verdict: DSLR wins here
It seems with mirrorless there’s always some workaround in the settings that needs to be done to get the same settings as their DSLR cousins. Both systems are well defined in their manual controls however when it comes to bracketing on a 2 timer setting, image averaging on location and other complex operations, Nikon and Canon have this down to an art and handle all requests. Mirrorless are still to catchup.