Canon has finally joined the mirrorless changeable-lens camera brigades. They had to, sooner or later, given that the trend to this seems bound to take over the world.
Unlike Nikon, they have chosen a large sensor, in fact the full APS-C sensor which they long have used in their DSLR cameras. But unlike the Pentax K-01, they have not kept the long distance between mount and sensor which the mirror once dictated. This means that you need an adaptor to use old Canon lenses, but it also means that the camera and the lenses can be much more compact. In fact it appears that this camera is rather smaller than the one-lens Canon G1X, a bit of an accomplishment.
It seems that the pre-production samples of this camera are not very fast with the focusing, something much of the market will not forgive, so let's hope for Canon this is dramatically changed when the camera hits the market.
Unlike Fujifilm, but like Nikon, Canon is aiming at the amateur market with this camera, as can be seen in the small size and the largely screen-based user-interface. In contrast, Fuji's X-Pro1 is surprisingly large and has manual dials for shutter speed and aperture. It's also said to have second-to-none image quality.
I think I'm only theoretically interested in this camera, the Canon, at least so far. With the developments this year in Micro Four thirds, especially the high-quality cameras and lenses from Olympus, it seems very unlikely that a family camera from Canon will present anything to lure me away.
Like the guy said: "No viewfinder, no camera!"
ReplyDeleteI rarely use the viewfinder.
ReplyDeleteMaybe I can get away with it because I live in an area where the sun rarely is sharp enough to overpower the screen.
"Unlike Nikon, they have chosen a large sensor"
ReplyDeleteThat's unlike NIkon and unlike micro 4/3 as well.
They're using the T4i contrast/phase detect focus system - perhaps a winning combination (we'll see in October, I suppose). One thing that has plagued mirrorless/M43 is SLOOOOOW autofocus. I'm curious to try it out.
ReplyDelete(By the way - it's nearly impossible to see what the Captcha says any more)
With the newest generations of M4/3 cameras, autofocus has come up to speed. It's hard to believe, but they are really at least as fast as most DSLRs now, it's great.
ReplyDeleteThis used to be a major disadvantage to the format, yes. As did poor low-light performance, which also now has been significantly improved.
I think that the only area which a camera like the Olympus OM-D can't quite stand up to the best DSLR cameras is sports photography. Following focus in rapid shooting mode is very specialized and it has not caught up here yet.