The growing image-processor unpleasantness

Posted Aug 23, 2022 6:45 UTC (Tue) by jem (subscriber, #24231)
In reply to: The growing image-processor unpleasantness by bartoc
Parent article: The growing image-processor unpleasantness

>I think this was due to improvements in display resolution and (esp) brightness, as well as improvements to autofocus, esp for people who use telephoto lenses a lot.

One thing that was holding back mirrorless interchangeable lens cameras was that they need an electronic viewfinder, since there is no mirror. The electronic viewfinders of a not so distant past were low-quality, expensive and power-hungry. Some die-hard DLSR camera fans still hate the electronic viewfinder.

>The advantages with mirrorless are huge.

One advantage is that the flange to sensor distance can be made much shorter, since there is no mirror in the way. This relaxes some optical constraints, enabling smaller lenses.

The growing image-processor unpleasantness

Posted Aug 23, 2022 9:21 UTC (Tue) by bartoc (guest, #124262) [Link]

Hell my mirrorless camera doesn't even have a viewfinder at all! The screen is bright enough it's not really necessary, although it probably improves the color reproduction over the screen.

Both improved display tech and the better flange distance were factors too. The display tech goes for both the screen and the viewfinder (if present). Screens have gotten a _lot_ brighter over the last few years and that's important for outdoors use.

The small flange distance also lets you use almost any lens made in the last 100 years with an adapter, which is nice.

Actually, I find it a bit of a shame we'll probably loose the 1" format compact cameras. Some of them are actually quite lovely. That format is small enough that you don't need an interchangeable lens system to get a nice wide range of (equivalent) focal lengths with pretty wide apertures, and you don't have to carry around multiple lenses. Sony's is like $1100 though, which is more than the high end iphone, and the lens is 1.25 stops slower. The fact that the optical image stabilization in the iphone is useful on an f/1.8 lens does tell you something about how noisy the sensor is, though.