One Photographer’s Perspective on Moving From Canon To Sony

August 16, 2015 by Udi Tirosh 14 Comments

The battle between was never that fierce and it seems that the action is not over yet. In the blue corner we have the heavy weight champions, Canon and Nikon with their old-yet-proven DSLR lines and on the red corner we have Fuji and Sony with their slick-and-fast mirrorless lines.

Moving from Canon to Nikon or vice versa is no longer “news” it seems that more photographers are moving from DSLRs to Mirrorless cameras.

Photographer Alex Koloskov (who is the face behind the successful Photigy site) just switched systems from Canon to Sony, and despite the fact that he is not using the latest model (he uses the older A7 and not the recently announced A7II) he still makes some valid point on making the move:

1. Flip LCD Screen with live view – easy to shoot for far above, below or from waist line without doing kamasutra with a camera.
2. WiFI photo transfer to smartphone – in 30 seconds I can post an image from Sony camera to social media.
3. Remote shooting with LIVE View using a smartphone
4. Size and weight – Sony is smaller and lightweight
5. Face focus tracking – awesome to photograph running children
6. Focus peaking – for manual focus lenses and follow focus for video
7. Focus magnification – for manual focus lenses (like with Canon lenses via adapter)
8. Better dynamic range – Sony a7II is amazing, I forgot about making exposure bracketing for HDR, with Sony it is always one shot, I just need to make sure that the brightest part is not overexposed too much. Shadows easily could be pulled up in ACR

Here is the movie where he elaborates (Alex is still using SLRs, but mirrorles took over his outdoor shoots):

And Alex follows with a few examples:

Pulling shadows from a dark photo (A7)

Single shot HDR

High Dynamic Range

Alex has a few more examples on his full post, where he also claims that DSLRs are dead.

About Udi Tirosh

Udi Tirosh is the Founder and Editor in Chief of DIYPhotography, he is also a photographer, a relentless entrepreneur, a prolific inventor and a dad, not necessarily in that order

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Oliver Guy

the shadows photo doesn’t prove anything. They were two separate photos. Look at the framing, the angle of the kids head.
- Adam
  
  Yes. Pretty deceptive. I can pull shadows with my D750 too.
Fred Castillo

Sony…always.
- Zygmunt Zarzecki
  
  Sensor… yes.
newworld666

Last 6 months worldwide shipments compared to 2014 => http://www.cipa.jp/stats/documents/e/d-201506_e.pdf
Mirrorless +1.2% ..DSLR +2.7% … not exactly a big move and at least smaller than what blogs are usually claiming without any public figures… just imagining..
Paul Menard

alot of the reasons people switch are shortcomings of the cameras we have, rather than inherent differences in dslr vs mirrorless
aleroe

None of those points (except size and weight) have anything to do with mirrorless vs. SLR. They are features that can be (and are being) added to SLRs. So sure, Sony jumped ahead of Canon and Nikon in terms of features, and C&N are scrambling to catch up. But that’s just another day in the camera industry, not an indication that mirrorless cameras are inherently superior.
Justin Barr

David this will be you next year
Renato Murakami

I’ve been with Alex’s opinion for a long time, and I totally get why some people will get on the defensive here, but it’s just personal opinion, nothing more.

To be honest, I don’t think mirrorless is there just yet, but there’s nothing stopping it, and in fact, it’s getting ever closer to the ideal while traditional dSLRs are lagging behind.
And much like Alex, even if Canon and Nikon are nowhere near dying (I know dSLRs still have the majority of the market), I don’t want them to be left behind.

In any case, cameras are tools. Just as some photographers these days still uses film, opt to go with older tech rather than newer stuff, even if Canon and Nikon keeps their strategies the same, there is bound to be a market for it.

But I’ll also have to acknowledge that Sony is making strides, and it’s getting ever closer to the camera several photographers won’t blink and eye before switching to, even if it means getting rid of extensive lens collections and entire accessory lines, workflow, and routines.

The advantage list is quickly becoming too large to overlook. I remember when micro four thirds first models came out, I wrote a review piece about it, lots of people scoffed at.
Then came APS-C models, then full frame from Sony. Same people who scoffed at my piece are now starting to think that this is indeed the future.

It starts with “I’ll get this as a secondary camera to use while on the move”, and then suddenly some people are realizing there is no reason for it to be a secondary camera anymore. There has been plenty of cases like that already.

There are tremendous obstacles to overcome. Lens selection. Sony cameras still need faster focus. Lots of people used to either Nikon or Canon will complain about ergonomics and menu layout.

But if you distance yourself a little bit and take a look on the evolution of mirrorless cameras, you’ll see how fast they evolved, how most of the problems about them nowadays are in no way impossible to solve, rather just a matter of time.

I won’t say Canon and Nikon didn’t evolve during the same period, but the evolution was slower, and lots of things were simply borrowed from mirrorless advances. That can’t be a good thing.

Now, to be fair with Canon and Nikon, they are trying to come up with solutions. But with worries about market cannibalization, not puting the best cards into the idea, going in a more or less half-assed way, I share this fear Alex has. Even though we have models from Fuji, Olympus, Panasonic, Samsung, among others, on the full frame line it’s either Sony or Leica. I’m not shure other brands are willing to go the full frame route since they are so invested into stuff between micro four thirds and aps-c.
And like Alex said, it’s not a good thing to have Sony as a monopoly.

Pretty shure part of the reason why Sony is going this slow to release new lenses and new cameras on the line is because there is simply no competition on it’s category. Sony already has close to a monopoly regarding sensors.

I’m close to switching from Canon to Sony too. It’s not the end of the world or anything, but you know.
cbenci

I’m sure it’s only a matter of time before we all shoot mirrorless, but for me the following three points are what it’s all about;

1 – Lens Quality / Range
2 – Reliability on the job
3 – Battery Life

In my world and the last time I checked, DSLR is still superior for these three reasons. Bringing up shadows in a landscape is far less important to me that nailing an impromptu portrait shot of a CEO at a corporate event.

But when the time is right and my Canon lens kit can travel to the new mirrorless body, I’m in.
- Chris Wright
  
  I have exactualy the same feels but Nikon. However it would be nice to review an image w/o chimping and focus peaking would be great with my Lensbaby.
Arcmor

Put “Is DSLR Dead” in the title and collect the clicks!
Pitsulo

Focusing on a little tv screen sucks big time, but hey slr is dead
J.W.

The mentioned reasons to “switch to mirrorless” are sooooo bogus:

1. Flip LCD with live view – my D750 hat that too and I love it
2. I have that too with my D750
3. dito
4. This heavily depends on what lenses you are taking with you. But mainly, this cannot be the reason to switch from a full frame DSLR to a Sony. Especially when you consider the batteries you have to take with you additionally!
5+6+7 These are certainly points a DSLR cannot provide. But are they worth to get all the drawbacks of the mirrorless concept? Choose yourself
8. Again, if you compare the newest Sony with the newest Nikon (and probably also the newest Canon) you will get mainly the same results. Everything different would not make sense. This is more a point to showcase how technology advances instead of “this system is better”

So please stop with these bogus stories about “switching to mirrorless” because all the current systems have their advantages and their disadvantages. But you never will get one system that matches for all situations!