The Era of Mirrorless?

To the people who do not know how a regular camera functions, which is okay considering most cameras are just sensors on peoples phones, let me explain how it operates. You need a magnifying lens and a dark box in which resides a mirror that both simultaneously is used as a viewfinder and a way to block the incoming source of light. Behind the mirror, is a piece of film. Once you look through the viewfinder and see the shot you want to take, the mirror flips up for a split second and an image is imprinted on the film. With film, you’d then have to take it in a dark container that never sees the light of day, to someone who can process it and turn your film into large photographs for your grandma's scrapbook. That is, until Steven Sasson, an engineer at Eastman Kodak, invented and made the first digital camera that used a sensor to take images in 1975. Like most technology, digital didn’t take off right away. Kodak itself did not believe digital would ever capture an image better than film. Here we are though, 44 years later and film is all but extinct. There are cameras on every phone and they’re getting almost as good as any DSLR. My Huawei Mate 20 Pro has a 40 megapixel (mp) camera with three internal lenses that capture insane detail, colors richer than ever before, and automatic environment detection to specifically tailor the camera’s sensor to take the best photo. The accuracy with which it can detect what it is seeing is almost scary. I was taking a picture of a waterfall, and a “waterfall” option came up on my screen. Without me touching anything in confirmation, it could take a photo quick enough to see water particles gliding through the air. That being said, if a phone camera is better than any film camera will ever be, what kind of options and fantastic wonders are in store for people if they buy the new Sony A7R3.

In my opinion, The Sony A7R3 is one of the most revolutionary cameras on the market today and I own one. The specs on this device blast competition out of the water. Sony has been intruding into the professional-consumer (prosumer) market by innovating and forcing all major competition to change as well in the face of their mirrorless “Alpha” line of cameras. Canon, Nikon, Fujifilm, and Olympus are all starting to come out with their own lines of mirrorless cameras, but Sony has been making mirrorless cameras for years. Sony has a head start on all of them when it comes to this by having a polished product that invites people to ditch their previous camera of choice and switch to investing in Sony lenses.

One of the main reasons a person is willing to switch from their investment of lenses and dive head first into Sony is because of their specs.

Sony A7R3

42MP BSI CMOS sensor

Faster, lower-noise image processing

10 fps shooting with full AF, 8 fps with 'live' updates between shots

3.69M dot (1280 x 960 pixel) OLED viewfinder

Improved autofocus, including more tenacious Eye AF mode

5-axis image stabilization, rated at 5.5 stops (CIPA) with 50mm lens

4K footage from 'Super 35' crop region oversampled from 5K capture

Video AF less inclined to refocus to background

'Picture Profile' video gamma/gamut modes including S-Log2 and 3

Twin SD Card slots (one UHS-I and one UHS-II compatible)

Bayer-cancelling multi-shot mode for improved resolution

True 14 bit uncompressed Raw, even in continuous drive mode

Use of phase detection (including Eye AF) at 3 fps with adapted lenses

(DPReview.com Carey Rose, Richard Butler, Rishi Sanyal, Dan Bracaglia Nov 22, 2017)

Facts sound impressive on paper, but this begs the question, ”Can it take good photographs?”, and I would answer by saying yes. Professionals and amateurs alike are going to be hard pressed to find better results than the Sony A7R3. Perhaps the next best thing, that would give noticable results, would be a 50mp Hasselblad H6D-400c, but that camera is valued at 48,000 dollars. So at the current 2,000 to 5,000 dollar price range, minor details become huge advantages over the competition. The best photo I have ever taken, and I have been involved in photography ever since I fixed my brother’s broken 14mp Kodak Easyshare when I was 8 years old, has been with my new Sony A7R3.

So, it can take good photographs, but now comes the questions as to whether it is comfortable and easy to use. These two talking points can make or break a camera when it comes to professional photographers because they make a living off of what camera they use. I do not want a hand cramp halfway through a photoshoot because the “grip is too blocky” and the pinky finger keeps sliding off since the “grip isn’t big enough”. When it comes to the A7R3, the grip is perfect, except that for most people, it is not big enough. Sony has a solution to this though, and it comes in the form of a grip extension that also acts as a container of extra battery slots. This way if someone is more inclined to have meatier hands, like myself, I can still hold on and get a longer battery life out of my camera.

This brings me to my final point, on what a battery means to the mirrorless generation of cameras. Without a mirror to reflect the incoming image into the camera’s optical viewfinder, I now need a digital viewfinder in order to see the image I want to take. This means that that I have two digital screens on the A7R3. One large touch screen to visually adjust my picture quality and desired details, and a much smaller one that will turn on when I press my eye to the viewfinder. The first mirrorless cameras had such poor battery life when they were used. The technology for rechargeable batteries was still in its infancy and a photographer could get maybe 500 shots per charge. Now with the newer models, you can get about a 1000 shots per charge, which makes them competitive with most DSLRs. Mirrorless cameras can also be charged through external battery sources instead of the battery being directly connected to an outlet, unlike DSLRs. This allows for longer use and less money being allocated towards extra camera native batteries, which often cost far more than alternative sources like a 20 dollar POWERNEWS Power Bank from Walmart.

As you can tell, I have a bias for mirrorless cameras. I like everything about them. Maybe I'll do a review of a semi-prominent DSLR to balance out my enthusiam for what they're doing at Sony.

Anyway I hope you all have a wonderful day, and awesome shoots!