Sunday, August 4, 2013

The Inevitable (Affordable) Mirrorless Full Frame

If you want a mirrorless full frame right now, the only game in town is Leica, which will set you back many thousands of dollars. The market has been calling for a more affordable mirrorless full frame for a few years now, but nobody has answered. Rumor has been floating around the net lately, that Sony is about to introduce a full frame mirrorless. I believe it. I do not believe Canon or Nikon, or anyone else, would want to produce such a product, either because they want to protect their full frame DSLR market, or unable to make one economically and make money from it. Sony is the perfect manufacturer to make one; they already have the RX1. All they need to do is to make the mount interchangeable. And, there is the VG9000 full frame with the NEX E-mount, which is optimized for video and is not exactly small or portable.

Yes Virginia, I think the market is ready for a full frame mirrorless camera. Rumor has it that the Sony version will cost $3000 for the body, which is a lot of dough, and I think is overpriced. Consider the RX1, that has a built-in excellent Zeiss lens, costs less. Poor mortals like me cannot afford one at this price, but I am sure there are many early adopters who has deep pockets will snap up these eagerly awaited full frame bodies. Perhaps in a couple of years, we might see its cost fall below $2000.

My fear is that even when the full frame mirrorless costs under $2000, it will still be a very niche camera. We have already seen camera sales have fallen by some 40% this year over last. The continuing sales slide may force the camera maker to pull it off the market. Let's hope this will not happen.

Flower - NEX-6 & Carl Zeiss Jena Pancolar 80mm f1.8

9 comments:

  1. One could claim the Sony SLT-A99 is "mirrorless", at least in the traditional sense as the mirror doesn't provide an optical path to the viewfinder, nor does the mirror move. In fact, it would be trivial for Sony to integrate the phase detector into the sensor (like the NEX-6) and remove the mirror entirely.

    However, to retain compatibility with the existing Alpha lenses means the body would have the same flange to focal plane distance and thus similar size and less ability to mount older lenses.

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    1. Very true that the A99 is mirrorless, but it's still a DSLR at heart. Perhaps I should use CSC (Compact Systems Camera) instead, to avoid the confusion.

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    2. True, the A99 still has the DSLR form factor because Sony markets it as such. But the real question is what do you envision as desirable features of a camera? And are those features achievable with a 35mm 3:2 sensor?

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    3. To me, the form factor is important. If I can buy a full frame camera in the form of a NEX-6, I would be extremely happy. The A-Mount has limited support for manual focus lenses; only a few mounts would work with it.

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    4. I guess it's possible as the Lecia M is full frame and only a little larger than the NEX. It also has the short (28.8mm) flange to focal distance needed for using old lenses.

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  2. I too yearn for something such as a cosina bessa sized full frame digital. Just thinking of the compact wide angle lenses as well as the delicious contrasts afforded by 100mm f2.8 lenses is highly attractive. I know myself that 50mm on 4/3 is not wholly equivalent :-)

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    1. Even though I said before I don't much mind about the size and weight of cameras, but after using the NEX series for a couple of years, shooting with a 1D III or even a 5D II tells me how flexible the NEX cameras are, and it won't weigh you down. I can shoot many full frame manual focus lenses on the 5D II but it's just not as easy to focus as is with the NEX.

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  3. Awesome shot, I like the bokeh. Could you share parameters and the clear background of this one?

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    1. Neil, I shot everything in AV mode because I want to control the aperture, which in turn controls depth of field and affects how the picture looks. This picture was shot at f2 or f2.8 on the NEX-6. I also shoot RAW as always and converted/processed the picture in Lightroom with final adjustments in Photoshop. I tend to use mostly default settings and applied very little processing to my pictures, in most cases.

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