Electronic Viewfinder Interchangeable Lens cameras eg. Micro 4/3rds, Sony NEX, Samsung NX.

Does anyone use one or have an opinion on these mirrorless cameras?

Thanks.

Aww. I was expecting an EVIL camera to show you blood cover scenes or something equally vile.

My brother has a Lumix GF1C as well as a regular DSLR and he seems to be quite happy with it.

I borrowed a GF1 from a friend and shot with it for a weekend. Honestly, it's a very nice camera. It's not as fast or precise as my D700 nor is it as compact and lightweight as my Panasonic LX5.

However, if I had to own precisely one camera, I'd take one of these EVIL things.

Heh, I hadn't heard EVIL as a term for these. I suppose it's as good as any, as I've heard that not all of these are "micro 4/3rds." I think many people have just been calling them "mirrorless."

Anyway, I have an Olympus Pen E-PL1. I think it takes good pictures, but I'm such a photo newbie it's ridiculous, and I don't have any experiences with full-on DSLRs.

I think this camera would qualify as the most evil looking one I've come across. As far as mirrorless DSLR's I think the new pellicle mirror Sonay A55 sounds way better than an EVF camera- an optical finder but without the mirror blackout or vibrations.

I am not sure who coined the term first but it appears to be used quite widely now. The Oly PENs are rated very highly for out-of-camera jpegs.

The Sony setup sounds like a good idea in theory but I would think that it would have to reduce the amount of light available to both the sensor and the viewfinder since it is 'splitting' the available light?

Yup, that's the downside: not as much light reaching the sensor and something interfering in the path of that light.

Or do they use the main sensor for the EV ?

My wife likes the Oly E-PL1 (except she thinks it looks designed for old folks) and she's picky about output quality.

I was going by Siberia37's comment that it had an optical viewfinder but according to dpreview:



So they do have an EVF (which I assume is fed from the image sensor) and siphon off some of the light for an AF sensor which still means that less light reaches the image sensor (and yes, something interfering with the path of that light).

The issue is autofocus. The slower systems, based on pixel contrast, can do the job purely from the main sensor, but if you want to do phase-detection autofocus (which all the big SLRs do, and which can give the focus computer magnitude and direction information for autofocus, thus yielding a faster lock), then you need a completely different design, where different pixels look at different parts of the lens.

Fuji has actually made a sensor that has phase-detection pixels stuffed amongst the regular pixels, giving you the best of both worlds without needing any sort of half-silvered mirror. (Instead, you get digital post-processing to fill in the blanks for the pixels that are used for focus instead of image capture.)

I like the retro styling for the most part, except that it's sort of cheap retro styling. The EP1 actually had a more legit retro look...

Interesting. I wonoder what is the impact of such a solution in terms of "image quality". Is that at all relevant? I guess it also depends on how many pixels are there devoted to AF.

It probably ends up not being a lot different than a "normal" sensor --> sensors nowadays likely have dozens, if not hundreds, of "bad pixels", that the firmware just maps out and replaces with averaged data from adjacent sensors. Not even the "raw" format files show them.

-ml

Dang I was just assuming it had an optical finder because of the pellice mirror. A lot of camera companies seem set on the EVF lately, they seem to think the mirror is on it's way out. The SLR mirror does have some big disadvantages- it's expensive, mechnical, and it makes wide angle lenses harder to produce since it forces them to be "retrofocus" design. Also you can't do video with the mirror in the way etc etc.. hard to get used to those EVFs though.

EVFs are improving, to the point where they offer a view that is as clear and bright as the OVF on an entry-level DSLR, albeit with some lag when following moving targets, and slight to complete blackout when shooting in continuous modes (depending on frame rate). They have the advantage of being able to overlay info on the scene and also directly show the effect of changes in exposure settings, although their colour accuracy is apparently not as good as an OVF.

I will stick my neck out here and predict that once Nikon and Canon enter the 'mirrorless' market, this type of camera will supplant the entry level DSLR, with mid level to professional DSLRs still using the current optical system. JMO!

One of the blogs I follow, NikonRumors, tracks Nikon's patent filings, from which it's clear that Nikon is spending a lot of time thinking about EVIL cameras. They're otherwise doing an excellent job of keeping their future product plans quite secret.

I do agree that the mirrorless compact camera market seems likely to consume the low-end SLR market, both from a cost savings perspective (no mirror, no pentaprism, etc.) but more importantly from a UI perspective. To a consumer "stepping up" from a compact point-and-shoot or a smartphone camera (sigh), it's completely natural to use the rear-camera display as your viewfinder, and why would you want to stare through a silly little hole?

What I find really intriguing is that, for once, Canon and Nikon are behind while serious momentum is developing behind the Micro 4/3 standard. Yes, both Sony and Samsung have concluded that they must (must!) introduce their own EVIL lens standards, but perhaps Canon or Nikon will surprise us by supporting the Micro 4/3 standard. If either one jumped on board, that would be a remarkable turn of events and could lead to a true, honest, industry-wide standard.

On the flip side, the APS-C sensors used in current Nikon and Canon low-end cameras would be logical to carry forward into their EVIL cameras, reusing parts and expertise, versus the smaller Micro 4/3 sensor which is a totally new thing.

You didn't mention the biggest reason why Canon and Nikon are trying to avoid Micro 4/3rds: Lenses. Lenses are a cash cow for them. Lenses don't become obsolete as soon as they are made, unlike DSLRs. They also don't decrease in value as quickly- in fact they tend to even increase over time a little bit. Ideal lenses have to be made specific to the sensor/image format they are intended to be used with. Otherwise you end up with the "crop factor" business that most current Canon/Nikon users deal with (unless they shelled out for a Full Frame Camera).

The "crop-factor" has little or nothing to do with the lenses. It's about the sensor geometry --> putting a sensor smaller than 35mm film into a 35mm body with a 35mm lens mount.

Both makers have "format specific" lenses that one can opt for to gain wider angle coverage than with legacy 35mm lenses.

I'm really happy to "deal with" a "crop factor" --> my camera is smaller and more versatile than a "full frame" behemoth, not to mention much much cheaper.

And when I do use "full size" lenses, the sensor uses the "sweet spot" middle area, giving better image quality than normal for a given grade of lens.

Cheers

And in fact that's the only way you are going to get a true wide-angle lens with a smaller sensor- a specially designed lens for that smaller sensor. Unless you start using semi-Fisheye designed full frame lenses, which are expensive.



Sure it works fine, but a Micro 4/3rds camera with Micro 4/3rd designed lenses would be smaller and lighter still...



The sweet spot is true for Wide Angles but not really for Telephotos so much, see the graphs regarding aberations in this article. A cropped telephoto lens is fine but telephotos is also where saving on the size and bulk of the lens would really be nice. So it's arguable that the advantages of the sweet spot are really enough to justify carrying a bigger lens.

A lot of ink has been spilled on the topic of cropped sensors and their impact on lenses. I think the interest bits seem to be that:

- You can build a physically smaller lens for less money with comparable image quality when you make the sensor smaller. Or, correspondingly, you can build a lens for a small sensor that does more things at the same price point. (Notable example: all these tiny cameras with their 30x superzoom lenses.)

- Micro 4/3 is becoming a legitimate cross-vendor standard. You can put a Panasonic lens on an Olympus body and it will actually work.

- If Canon or Nikon wanted to get into the Micro 4/3 game, then there would be correspondingly more competition, both for lenses and bodies because they would all interoperate nicely.

Will that actually happen? I really doubt it, but it sure would be sweet.

Yeah. Neither Canon nor Nikon have ever bothered making lenses to fit each other's cameras, and I don't see that policy changing just because of Panasonic or Olympus.

Cheers

IMO the ideal situation would have been an open standard for a lens mount to suit an APS-C sensor due to it being the best compromise of size vs image quality (again IMO).

Sony have shown that it is possible to create a very compact camera around this size sensor with the NEX3/NEX5.

Also most existing lenses would fit with an adaptor (possibly even retaining AF/aperture adjustment) due to the reduced flange to sensor distance, as they currently do for m4/3.

While there is a lot of momentum behind m4/3, I personally am left feeling that it is a 'test run' to refine the mirrorless system for a future larger sensor. Look at how little love there is for the original 4/3 standard. However if Canon or Nikon back it, it will certainly become the default standard but as was previously stated, the 'big two' will want to try to lock users in to their own lenses only so them backing m4/3 looks unlikely.

After seeing the attached schematic of the mirror mechanism in a DSLR, I am even more amazed that they are priced as low as they are. (From here about 1/4 way down the page).

That's what more than half a century of continuous improvement can do for ya!

Pretty amazing still, though.

Amusement: if you had a Nikon F3 in the 1980's, you were running the best kit any photojournalist could ever want. The standard motor drive attachment ran it at a whopping 3 frames per second. (Wikipedia says there was a limited-edition half-silvered mirror that let the camera shoot at 11 fps.)

Today, just about any consumer DSLR will happily give you 3 fps and the pro cameras are 8 fps or more. Clearly, they've done amazing things by evolving the mirror mechanism, but it's also an obvious target for elimination to save costs further in low-end cameras.

Not just improvement of the mech, but improvement of the manufacturing process too.

Still, It's not going to survive the revolution.