Of 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.)
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Comments
Hate to nitpick, but "mirrorless DSLR" is meaningless. A single lens reflex camera, by definition, has mirrors. Also, the D is a useless prefix.
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...