Five Mirrorless Cameras Worth Considering
With the vast array of cameras on the market today, choosing one that best fits your requirements and budget can be a daunting task. At This Is Glamorous & Belgrave Crescent, we require an all-around camera with excellent image quality, portability, a good selection of lenses, and the ability to capture everyday moments easily.
If I had written this article 5 or 6 years ago, I would have undoubtedly recommended an entry to mid-level Canon or Nikon DLSR to meet your shooting needs. At the time, the DLSR market was unrivalled in image quality, performance and versatility. Fast-forward to the present day and we have a brand new breed of mirrorless interchangeable lens cameras offering great image quality and video, combined with being small light and portable, in contrast to their bulky DLSR counterparts. Manufacturers like Olympus and Fuji have invested heavily in mirrorless technology over the past 6 years and we are now starting to see them create some of the most innovative and best all-round value cameras available on the market today.
The reason DLSR cameras tend to be relatively big and heavy is because at their heart, they are still mechanical devices. The Digital Single Lens Reflex [DSLR] camera evolved from the Single Lens Reflex that used film. When DSLR cameras were first developed, they simply adopted many of the components of the SLR film cameras, including the pentaprism, the optical view finder and mechanical mirror. A digital sensor was added to capture images. The size of the mirror and pentaprism have to be the same size as the sensor, which means there is always a limit to how small a DSLR can be made, as it must house all these components in the body of the camera. The advantage of the mirrorless camera is that without the need for a pentaprism mirror or optical view finder, the body of the camera can be much smaller and lighter while using a large sensor like a DLSR.
High-end DSLR cameras definitely still have a place, especially for professional photographers who shoot commercial, wedding, sports, wildlife and fine art photography. However, in terms of image quality and functionality, there isn’t much difference between the top-of-the-range mirrorless systems and the very best mid-range DLSR’s. So if you planning on purchasing a new camera, it’s definitely worth considering a mirrorless one. –P.
