6 Reasons Why You Shouldn’t Dump Your DSLR for Mirrorless
Feb 1, 2016
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Mirrorless cameras are the in thing these days. Being called ‘DSLR killers’, some speculate that the soon-to-be announced Canon EOS-1D X Mark II and recently announced Nikon D5 will be the last, or almost last, flagship cameras in a dying out market.
They’re small, lightweight, less conspicuous and out-perform DSLR cameras in certain parameters. Sounds like mirrorless is the way to go, right?
Pouring a big, cold bucket of ice on the mirrorless-enthusiasm, however, are these 6 reasons why you shouldn’t chuck your DSLR just yet.
Kai of DigitalRev TV shares a few of the downsides of mirrorless cameras, and they will make you think twice before switching over.
Battery Life Sucks
One of the first things people notice after they getting their first DSLR is how amazing the battery life is. The jump from point & shoot or bridge cameras is significant, and you can go through entire days or weeks of moderate shooting without worrying about changing batteries.
Mirrorless cameras, on the other hand… not so much.
Autofocus Still Can’t Compete
If you’re mostly into still life or landscape photography you mostly couldn’t care less about the autofocus system. However, this is a major issue for many shooters, especially sports and wildlife, but not only.
Mirrorless cameras might have fancy new focusing systems, but put them up to the test on a moving subject against any DSLR and they’re likely to lose.
Image Quality
While mirrorless cameras can shoot better video than DSLRs, their high-ISO is nothing to write home about. The Sony’s a7S II and similar models are obviously the exception here.
We’ll also have to wait for more video examples from the Nikon D500 and D5 to see if their new 4K video recording capabilities give mirrorless cameras a run for their money.
Size
Remember we said mirrorless cameras are smaller? Well, that is true.
But… what good is a small camera if the lenses are almost as big as those of DSLR cameras? That just makes the system feel less balanced, in my opinion, and doesn’t save much space or weight.
This is especially true if you choose to use your DSLR lenses on your mirrorless body. Don’t forget to add in the size and weight of the adapter as well.
Also, as Kai says in the video, some mirrorless bodies are getting larger further reducing the size factor as a reason to go mirrorless.
Lens Selection
DRTV say you’ll stick with the kit lens instead of spending money on something that looks very similar to the DSLR lens you already own, but there’s also no arguing that the lens selection for mirrorless cameras is limited in comparison to those for DSLRs.
This will obviously change as more mirrorless lenses are introduced, but right now DSLRs win big time.
Electronic Viewfinders
Electronic viewfinders (EVF) are much better today than they were just a few years ago, but optical viewfinders (OVF) are still better and more popular among photographers.
Another big advantage of the OVF over the EVF is that it works even when the camera is off.
So why not leave your mirrorless on all the time while you’re out like you do with your DSLR? That’s right, the battery life sucks.
Liron Samuels
Liron Samuels is a wildlife and commercial photographer based in Israel. When he isn’t waking up at 4am to take photos of nature, he stays awake until 4am taking photos of the night skies or time lapses. You can see more of his work on his website or follow him on Facebook.
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29 responses to “6 Reasons Why You Shouldn’t Dump Your DSLR for Mirrorless”
“Another big advantage of the OVF over the EVF is that it works even when the camera is off”
Mirrorless or DSLR can’t be used if they are turned off.
especially agree with you can use it without batteries. several occasions I watched some of the events from far distance witout taking photo
clichés…
The size thing was the biggest reason for me to get my a6000, but yes the lenses do make the camera larger, almost to dslr sizes. The thing is with a small lens the mirrorless can be small.
To be honest, there’s only ONE real advantage of dslrs over mirrorless ones now: AF. Other you mentioned are not real, really. However, it’s the matter of time…
I have Fuji and Nikon mirror less cameras. The Fuji iso performance is killer. Better than other cameras in the price range vs Which is a huge deal to me. The Nikon 1 series. Might not be the greatest iq and crappy iso but dang the autofocus is super fast and the burst rates are the incredible.
The viewfinder is probably the biggest reason for me. As for the size issue, I’m 6’5″ with the hands to match, so a larger camera just feels better to me. I like know that I have something in my hands and can get a good grip on it.
Oddly, I have small hands and also prefer most dslr bodies. Go figure. :D
A decent hefty camera is less prone to movement when you press the shutter button. On ‘cheap’ cameras this is more of a problem than you’d think but on DSLRs (and the decent ‘pro’ compacts I guess) they resist the minute movement that can make a huge difference between a bad pic and a good one if shooting handheld.
Although it did just occur to me that this could just be that better cameras have a better designed shutter button that doesn’t take so much force to press down that it moves the camera!
I’m the same and use an Olympus OMD EM-1 with the portraint grip, it’s no issue and feels great.
And now? The EM-1 with the grip is not so much smaller than a SLR. Especially an APS-C kind.
Someone obviously never used a Fuji… Lenses are small and the number of them exceeds what Anyone would ever need, AF is blazing fast, High-ISO is aswell on the Good side as is Battery-Life and even the evf is fast enough!
none of this advice seems relevant to any of the photography that I do.
It depends. Olympus has great lenses and size wise is small. Battery life is not as good, but depends on shooting style too. At the end of the day, the biggest advantage is that my e-m5 mii is always with me and the D750 stays home…
What’s your everyday lens of choice?
12-40 w backpack
20 1.7 or 45 1.8 in my pocket
Just got the Sony A7R
Battery life poor
So getting battery grip ,so small a7 becomes big
Lenses, buy adopters and shoot with any lens great
Electronic viewfinder great can’t see the fuss can be advantageous
I only do landscape so af not important
Image quality ,wow !
DSLR or mirroless two different beasts
How do they compare in terms of shutter lag?
My main issues with mirrorless are the electronic viewfinder (horrible!) and the bad grip.
Have you used a decent one? The electronic viewfinder on my Olympus OMD EM1 is excellent.
These articles conflate the concept of mirrorless with the current glorified-compact examples.
Put an EVF on a D750 and the conversation is over.
Sorry but none of the statements in this are backed up by anything conclusive. I use both a DSLR, Olympus E-3, and a Mirrorless Olympus OMD-EM1. The statements made above don’t come close to my experiences at all.
Battery life – no issue with battery life with my EM1 – especially with the portrait grip
Electronic View Finder – It’s excellent on the EM1. I can do so many things with is that puts an optical viewfinder to shame.
Size with big lenses – I still use the original 4/3 lenses as I have not been able to save up enough to buy new ones. It does not feel unbalanced – it still feels fine.
Image quality – it is excellent.
Lens selection – Micro 4/3 have loads of lenses.
Auto-focus – it is excellent
Maybe the author needs to try an up to date top of the range mirrorless camera made by Olympus or Sony. Other plus points include the excellent in body image stabilisation as well as all the buttons being fully customisable.
It’s just another click bait article, next week will be why you should dump your DSLR, or why digital sucks and you need to go back to film. I don’t see most of these issues with even my Sony A6000. It has an excellent autofocus, and the batter life is fine for me. I had an EVF on my old Sony H9, so I guess I am used to them. My DSLR doesn’t have live-view, not sure if others do, and I really like that feature. I also like using my smart phone as a remote in which I can see the shot before I take the pictures. I also like being able to transfer pics right to my phone (not sure if any DSLRs do this). So in closing all cameras suck and all cameras are better in the world of clickbait.
This still stands up … https://www.diyphotography.net/5-reasons-dslrs-obsolete-todays-world-martin-gillman/
Remember your dumb phones? Charge them once a week, maybe. With smartphones, it must constantly be charged. I charge mine like 4 times a day. But I dump my dumb phone nonetheless. Because smartphone’s benefits overweight poor battery life.
Mirrorless will reach that level someday. It already has for me, but many don’t feel the same way. Yet.
Fairly accurate… But in time these problems will be solved. Much like the evf lag has improved immensely over the years.
Horses for courses…
My em-5 mkii is amazingly quiet but struggles with focus in the dark and yet my d4 will take a photo when i can barely see, but is so loud it feels like you’ve been smacked in the face when you take a photo.
This video by Digital Rev was absolute trash. One of the most biased and minimalisticly informative videos they have slapped together in a while. It goes beyond entertainment and boarders pure ignorance.
They just got done writing a blog post not even a month ago saying “Sony was amazing! Winner of 2015!”, now they release this?
Tried the hipster cams, gone back, slr just works…