Mirrorless or DSLR?

I have used Canon DSLR's for about 12 years before switching to mirrorless, i got fed up of the bulk of a DSLR and found myself leaving my Canon 60D at home most of the time, unless i was specifically going out to shoot, i switched to the EOS M system purely based on brand loyalty and i took it out with me more but i missed the OVF of the DSLR, so have recently switched to the Olympus OM-D E-M10 too, i was concerned about the EVF at first as earlier mirrorless systems EVF was poor, but i found that on the E-M10 is very good, my camera always leaves the house with me now.
 
Blinkz said:
As a lot of you have said I'm leaning towards getting the 40d to make a start with and then I won't be spending a huge amount of money for something I might not like.
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Sounds like a good way to go, pick up your friends 40d and maybe a couple lenses, a kit zoom and a std length prime. This will let you have a good play around while keeping the costs low and help you decide on which way you'd like to go.
 
Love the 40D had a great feel nice and solid. Only thing that started to let it down was its ISO performance, but you will definitely learn what you want from a camera by using one for a while.
I went from a 40D to an A7R.
 
I love mirrorless because of old manual focus lenses and focus peaking / zoomed focusing. I now own lenses I could not dream of realistically affording if I tried to buy their auto-focusing equivalents.

Plus, getting a tough shot with manual focus feels much better than letting the lens do all the work.
 
Focusing peaking could be added to l oh vevore with DSLRs, in any case you already get focus acquisition indicator in the viewfinder.

But I guess I'm just not a big fan of manual focusing, Im more concerned with composition, framing, subject, lighting, background etc. The more the camera can do the better IMO. I want to concentrate on the artistic side andet the camera take care of the technical.
 
When I first used mirrorless I thought focus peeking was great. Now even though I have it turned on, I rarely use it. At apertures with a large dof peaking is too optimistic.

I always zoom (in the EVF) and manually focus that way.
 
Unless you are shooting sports, dslrs are a waste of time. Their only real benefit at this time is that some of them remain better ergonomically than some of the mirrorless (Sony in particular) options and most importantly they are cheap. Nikons D5 series are really good and really good value. For your use I'd buy a Fuji as they are the best combination of usability and good lenses. They have a hard to define character and are beautiful to use. m43 is also very good but a bigger sensor is basically always better - and unless you want big zooms no lens is larger on any sensor size

I use a 5dmk3 and a Fui xt1 - the latter with fast primes, the former with fast zooms.
 
Some of the mirror-less 4/3 cameras are a heck of a lot less imposing when taking pictures of people. Obviously better performance and images can be taken with entry and mid level DSLRs. The other half has a mirror-less (Olympus Pen) it takes great pictures but needs good light. I have a DSLR and it is great for low light, fast moving objects like cars/aircraft etc. and I have a much bigger choice of lenses if I wanted. I get a lot more control over the pictures with a DSLR.
 
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delta - thats not true, those m43 sensors even outperform canon in some respects, for example dynamic range - and they have much better lenses. Neither Canon nor Nikon really do any decent asp-c lenses.
 
Chimp Paradox said:
delta - thats not true, those m43 sensors even outperform canon in some respects, for example dynamic range - and they have much better lenses. Neither Canon nor Nikon really do any decent asp-c lenses.
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There are great sensors for each. As for lenses, there is the dated 17-55 2.8 which is as good as an L lens, you can also just use full frame lens and get the best part of the centre of the lens. Then you can always look at Sigma etc. 18-35 1.8 one of the best lens made.
 
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Remember that Canon and Nikon are not the only producers of lenses, Sigma have produced some remarkable lenses lately like the 17-35mm f/1.8.
 
those lenses are great, no doubt, but they also AF slower than Canons. I have the 24-70 II and the 70-200 II for my 5dmk3 and they are staggeringly quick. Sure, I'd love stabilization like in the Tamron 24-70 but its substantially slower to AF.

Putting full frame lenses on crop sensors is also madness - partly because the focal length range becomes much less useful due to the crop factor, and partly because its a very expensive thing to do and still be limited by the crop sensor performance! You then have a very heavy camera without the performance.

With Olympus and Fuji you are going to have two razor sharp zooms that neither Canon nor Nikon have on their smaller sensor cameras.
 
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At the short end a FF lens isn't ideal as you don't have enough at the bottom end due to crop but on telephoto FF lens is pretty much a must. The better telephoto lens are FF, you aren't blowing huge money either for example the 70-300. Fortunately at the short end there is a stunning range of L quality EF-S lenses as mentioned.
 
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