When will we get the first mirroless evf professional camera?

[ilkka_nissila]

<p>The requirement for a full-frame sensor comes from the existing lenses. Of course most people would want to get the most performance out of their existing expensive lenses. Anyway, full-frame means just that the sensor is the largest that the image circle can support - it is not tied to any given sensor size. For NEX lenses, NEX cameras are full frame, as is the case for Nikon 1 series lenses and V1/J1 cameras.</p>

<p>The thing about 24x36 is that it has the largest base of lenses for many applications. That's why 24x36mm sensors are in high demand. It's also a convenient size for a camera for general purpose photography. In the future sensor manufacturing technology will make larger than 24x36mm sensors more economical and medium format may eventually make a come-back. Then we can enjoy those otherworldly tones and rich colours along with exquisite detail. There will of course be a host of formats for sunday happy snappers who couldn't care less about quality as long as they are not burdened by a heavy camera.</p>

[jcuknz]

<p>It is a shame as I read the first few comments to this thread that some professionals are so blinkered in their thinking and so disdainful of progress. But it is not a digital thing becuase I've struck it for time to time from way back. I'm sure in time that sensors will improve so that quality images will come from lenses equally small as the bodies we are starting to see. A Dick Tracey style cellphone equal in quality to todays full frame DSLR or MF back :-)</p>

[DickArnold]

JK. Thanks for your comment. I agree. In 1991 we started a GPS program office in the FAA. What we heard was the GPS signal was too weak at a minus 126 db to ever support a viable alternative to then 2700 ground navigation systems installed in the US. Twelve channel GPS receivers cost 50k in 1992. The transiton to GPS as a sole means of navigation began in 1993 when an FAA technical service order allowed GPS use over the oceans where no navaids existed. GPS for civil aviation navigation is now widely used over land and sea and is gradually replacing those 2700 ground based aids.

 

 

We heard initially that nothing would ever replace those ground based systems. We heard the military would never give up certain accuracy controls on the public signal (selective availabilty). They did so, however, fifteen years ago. Bill Clinton offered GPS to for worldwide use in 1995 Early on there were some visionaries that believed it could be done. We developed the Wide Area Augmenation System to provide accuracy, integrity and availability to support safe civil aviation navigation and landing operations. It is operational in the contiguous US and Alaska today. Receiver technology has improved to the point of that one hundred dollar GPS receivers use the Wide Area System. I have one. Today GPS is part of the FAA nexgen system for future air traffic control. This was all done despite seemingly insurmountable opposition.

 

 

It was painful to be contradicted almost immediately in this thread by a respected figure here on PN by his defending the status quo because lenses have to be big and by attacking my semantics in the use of the words "professional" and "full frame" rather than going to substance. All sorts of cameras are used professionally. Having been a part of the initial GPS civil effort I understand this tactic of diversion as I have seen it before. This thread has been very informative and after seeing that Canon has started the effort to change with a prototype and seeing where Sony, Olympus, Panasonic, Fuji and Nikon are improving in-camera software by eliminating moving mirrors on on a broad spectrum of the pro(Sony A77) and comsumer market I can see change in progress. It is hard for large organizations to change as it is akin to trying to turn the Queen Mary around in Boston Harbor. So it will take time and this change appears to be led by the less dominant players. However there are 11,000 threads on the NEX cameras alone on another site. Someone is buying them. A lot of NEX stock is sold out because of the Thai floods. There is some very wide sophisticated interest out there in other forums that transcends the more conventional thinking I see on PN and I believe that interest is rapidly building. I really believe that lenses will get smaller and smaller sensors will get better and that, as Sony has begun camera and lens software improvements and innovation that are already changing the culture.

 

 

Right now my NEX 5n is an adjunct to my larger Canon system. It is great on the social side of the photos that I take and EVF technology is progressing rapidly. The 1.5 crop Sony sensor in the 5n is as good as any made and is used by Nikon. However I still reserve judgment on the 5n and will keep my Canon array for some time to come.

 

 

Part of my job in the FAA was to bring my practical aviation experience to the development of civil use GPS. It was also part of my job to publicly challenge the overwhelming negative conventional thinking at the inception that said it was not possible. I and others did that publicly and worldwide through the International Civil Aviation Organization and it was not an easy battle.

 

 

My photography background does not match my aviation background but I do think that archaic mirror technology and the restraints to software development are long overdue for change. Looking at the Sony line of cameras they are certainly headed that way. They could be wrong but I don't think so.

 

 

There is a hell of a lot of legacy equipment out there and any transition to smaller and broader functionality will take time but many customers right now are making that leap as the technology improves. I have several thousand dollars in L lenses that I would be loathe to replace but dammit I have already begun that transition however slow. I hope there will be some backward compatibility to help me along the way.

 

 

Dale Carnegie taught me years ago that the only subject I really am expert on is my own experience. Mine is with GPS and dealing in a very responsible way for several years with bringing about scientific and functional change in a broad wordwide base of users: most important was the public and industry adaptation to that change. I think it is exciting despite the dismissive two line cold shower this thread initially took.

 

[ilkka_nissila]

<p>The EOSHD site is just <em>speculating</em> that the 4K DSLR will be mirrorless - Canon calls it an SLR and so it will have a mirror by definition (Chuck Westfall would certainly not make the mistake of calling a mirrorless camera a DSLR). Also, it's an EF mount camera, not PL. Notice that with Canon's EOS C300 you can get it for both EF and PL mounts - but you have to buy separate cameras ($20k) for each mount.</p>

<p>Canon says this 4K DSLR will record 4K in an APS-H section of the full-frame sensor ("Cropped to APS-H-equivalent size (dimensions measuring approximately 80% vertically and horizontally of a 35 mm full-frame sensor)"). This area is larger than the super 35 format covered by PL lenses; this would mean if the PL lenses could be used, the resulting 4K video would have need to be cropped (and then it would not be 4K). </p>