FRIEZE ART FAIR NEW YORK 2012
MILAN 2012: SALONE INTERNAZIONALE DEL MOBILE
MILAN 2012: SATELLITE EXHIBITIONS
MILAN 2012: BRERA DESIGN DISTRICTOf all the social photographs now populating the web, the ones shot inside bars or nightclubs are typically of the crappy flash variety, forever immortalizing your friends as ghastly white-skinned party ghosts. The reason has something to do with the physical design of cameras: SLRs with low-light lenses are bulky beasts that few people will always carry around, while many of us will frequently have a cell phone or point-and-shoot tucked away in a purse or pocket, and those tiny-lensed devices require flash.
I believe that will change due to mirrorless DSLR cameras, also called SLDs (Single Lense Digitals) growing in popularity.
Seeing is believing, and I'm now sold on the image quality of SLDs. A buddy of mine recently began toting around a Panasonic Lumix DMC-GF1 with a 20mm/f1.7 lens, and I'm highly impressed at how well the fairly compact camera shoots in low light, perfect for documenting bar life:
[image credit: Tony Ho Loke]
I'm also excited that the camera can essentially grow or remain the same in size depending on what accessories you want to slap onto it, giving you the option of how much you want to carry. For example, check out how Sony's ID department has been busy tricking out their NEX-series cameras. (There's an interview with their NEX design department here, but unfortunately it's not yet been translated from Japanese into English, and Google Translator is not yet up to the task.)
Hit the jump for a few more shots, and prepare yourself for a future filled with better photographic representations of the good times had in dimly-lit bars. I know it's not exactly the French Revolution, but at some point we'll all be crusty old people and those freakin' Facebook galleries will be all we have!
Comments
The "SLR" part of DSLR stands for "Single Lens Reflex." You cannot have a "mirrorless" SLR. The mirror is the definition of an SLR (that's what the R part is). The fact that image quality of an SLR is great has nothing to do with the mirror. The mirror allows the user to see through the lens itself, which is great for composing an image. The reason the image quality is high is because they also pair these systems with really huge image sensors, which reduce noise.
These Sony cameras are awesome, and use the same size sensor as in a Sony DSLR. They are not DSLRs though.
If you cant look through an optical viewfinder, and see through the actual lens, it's not an SLR.
You'll be able to take some nice images in low light with these, because of the sensors. But you'll need to hold it out in front of you, and there is no optical viewfinder. Some people like this, some people don't.
That said, I really want one with the pancake lens...
Agreed that these cameras are likely the future of photography for most occasions - and serious photography, not just party shots.
Hate to nitpick, but "mirrorless DSLR" is meaningless. A single lens reflex camera, by definition, has mirrors. Also, the D is a useless prefix.
I'm really looking forward to the micro 3/4s SLRs coming out, but one thing I do miss already is the slightly blurry, no-flash pictures of my old canon SD10. It captured enough light that if you held it still, you were rewarded with a picture with blurry backgrounds, slightly skewed faces, and wonderful colors... which simulated the drunken stupor in which I usually took such photos. Being wasted, while taking completely focused, clear photos might be a bit 'strange'.