Sony is thinking beyond DSLRs as it sets its sight to a whole new level where the camera industry can go beyond serving the film design. CNET.com has also written a commentary on this concept and has proposed that the forthcoming future of higher-end photography might lie in the mirrorless realms.

Sony has finally gradually stopped the production of DSLR cameras, bringing the whole era of the last decade to an indefinite halt. The crux of the matter is that the tech giant is striving hard to transcend the camera industry to a whole different level and further from its history in the filmmaking fraternity.

If you are uninitiated to the internal machinery of the camera and haven’t paid much attention to the whole debate pertaining to the mirrorless camera, then this blog belongs to you. Here, you will find out what Sony has done in recent times and why its actions are significant for the camera industry. The company originating from Japan has proven itself to become a sort of MVP in pushing for the new era of mirrorless cameras.

As a user, you will only understand the subtle difference in the quality of the photographs you receive. However, if you wish to know the technical details, then the mirrorless cameras will provide new features such as rapid-fire shooting, more enhanced computing horsepower for photography, and further improved autofocus.

The new photography model called “Mirrorless Camera” has pushed the camera industry from the domain of core design which had been going in since the last century itself involving all the works of film design. In the past, something called “SLR” cameras used to employ a reflective “reflex” mirror to reflect the light from the lens and direct them towards the viewfinder, facilitating the image’s composition. However, whenever we used to click a photograph, the mirror would displace from its location, the shutter would open, and the film used to get exposed. Over the course of time, every industry started moving towards digital media, and the camera industry was no different. The DSLR was introduced, the DSLR being the acronym for Digital Single Lens Reflex, and it had borrowed the concept of the single-lens reflex camera into its design. Essentially, the DSLR camera had swapped image sensors used for filming.

Now, you must note the fact that the absence of DSLR camera models based on the reflex mirror was observed from electronic.sony.com by SonyAlphaRumors last Tuesday. The website electronics.sony.com is essentially an official website created by Sony catering to people looking for Sony’s interchangeable lens camera. The product alteration was observed in the digital market. Online sellers such as B&H Foto & Electronics and Adorama have officially removed the 2016 model called “A99 Mark II” from their stores.

Initially, Sony was not part of the high-end photography industry, but it gradually established itself after its entry in 2005 courtesy of a deal that saw its acquisition of SLR business owned by Konica Minolta. It was also the time when aspiring filmmakers, fledgling independent creators, and a part of Hollywood started accepting digital cameras and DLSRs as the instruments for filmmaking, rejecting the celluloid camera in its entirety. Anyways, Sony started releasing its high-end photography products, which were formidable competitors to Canon and Nikon; however, they weren’t good enough to match their sales dominance.

Sony has been gradually coming towards mirrorless cameras for years now; their next step in the high-end photography industry was the release of DSLT models, which was sort of an intermediary step between the company and their objective of mirrorless camera models. The DSLT models used a translucent mirror instead of a reflective mirror, and reflected a portion of light towards the viewfinder, and diverted the rest of the portion towards the image sensor.

The Change to Mirrorless Camera from Sony

The secret of Sony’s success has been the mirrorless cameras. Sony released mirrorless cameras and changed the entire landscape of the photography industry. As you can guess, scientifically, a mirrorless camera allows the complete portion of the light from the lens to converge at the image sensor. The mirrorless camera neither requires a reflective mirror nor a translucent mirror. The digital image output gets displayed either on the viewfinder (which also includes a tiny screen of its own) or on the back of the camera.

Sony wasn’t stopping at that; it worked on its technology, which has evolved over the years. And, now it is showing to the industry that the reflective-mirror camera is now a seriously outdated product. And, all of these efforts materialized into the massive success and affluence of Sony products. A veteran camera reviewer called Lori Grunin has revealed in his statement to CNET that Sony’s rise to prominence in high-end photography is closely related to its diversion towards the mirrorless camera from reflective-mirror and DSLT cameras.

The giant Japanese force in the electronics industry, which is also renowned for the manufacturing of image sensors outsourced by its rivals, has even managed to brute force its competitors to enter the mirrorless camera domain and release their own models. And as a result of it, we now see products such as Canon R5 and Canon R6 along with Nikon Z6 and Nikon Z7 in the market.

Slowly but surely, Sony has managed to deliver home the fact that every aspiring photographer, along with enthusiasts, has to look towards a mirrorless camera.

Advantages of Mirrorless Camera

If we are speaking about the advantages, then it is imperative to first observe the fact that the mirrorless camera would naturally provide better autofocus because of the fact that the Sony’s in-house image sensors would be operating at all times the camera is turned on, and the image sensors would also be backed up and powered by high-quality processors.         

The wedding photographers would benefit from mirrorless cameras because of a feature called eye-tracking autofocus introduced by Sony to aid portrait photographers in time-saving. Well, Sony might be ahead in the game, but Cannon has also managed to match some of the eye-tracking features in its R5 and R6 models. Mirrorless cameras are also beneficial in utilizing the autofocus feature in the entirety of the screen and not the center of the screen, which is quite beneficial in highlighting the contrast while filming. This feature was not available in the reflective mirror camera and translucent mirror camera.

Remember the loud clicking sound? Well, mirrorless cameras come embedded with the pictures that would allow photographers to click anything without dropping a pin courtesy of electronic shutters. The mirrorless cameras also have an embedded viewfinder that would let you click anything in the pitch dark as well.

The manual focusing, composition, and exposure are also enabled with a mirrorless camera. The latest mirrorless camera models such as Sony’s Alpha 1 and Canon’s forthcoming model R3 can capture the high-resolution photo at a breakneck speed. The shooting rate that both models can offer is 30 frames per second, which is staggering, considering the fact that a few years earlier, even six frames per second, was considered to be an achievement. It would be easier for us to understand the concept when we observe a scientific fact that when things become lighter, they become faster, so it is quite beneficial to draw heavy components such as mirrors out of the system.

Now, having said that, it is important to look at things with perspective and talk about some of the demerits of the mirrorless camera as well. For the firsts, the batteries of the mirrorless camera dry out much rapidly since the batteries have to power the image sensor and viewfinder on a continuous basis. There will be moments when you find that the images shot by the mirrorless camera are slightly deviating from reality, but that is not always the case and must also depend on the lighting and the camera angle as well.

Conclusion

Despite the fact that Sony wants the camera industry to look ahead of the film industry and move towards the mirrorless camera, there is a strong voice from across the fraternity that wants the preservation of old filming modules such as celluloid. Nevertheless, as far as photography is concerned, a mirrorless camera would offer nothing but profit to the photographers. However, there are certain things that need to be looked at before things can proceed towards perfection, and these are battery backup and reality deviation. However, all in all, the mirrorless camera would cement itself soon enough as the only logical way the photography gets done in the upcoming future.

Hi, this is Elisa Wilson , a tech-savvy from the Canadian province, Alberta. I am a computer science graduate who is currently working as a tech research analyst at Kforce Technologies. Alongside providing detailed info-graphics to studies in question, I also create instruction manuals and troubleshooting guides as per the client’s requirement. Recently, I have created a Roku activation guide, and here’s the link you need to follow: roku.com/link.