I wrote this blog about 2 years ago and never got round to publishing it, in the meantime, Canon and Nikon have both launched pro full frame CSCs and Panasonic have just come to the party with the Lumix S1R. Still love my Pentax K1 for quality but it definitely feels like one of the last of a dying breed.
Dslrs and Cscs are not the same but they sit in the same market segment of enthusiast to professional use. Currently the Cscs are only making limited in-roads into the Dslr dominated professional market but they are coming - everything is in their favour already except battery life and that will be fixed, or their unquestionable advantages will outweigh the need to carry spares.
Sony Alphas, Olympus OM-Ds, Fuji XTs and others are here to stay. When the market penetration of Cscs is sufficient, companies will simply stop developing Dslrs and they will go the way of film cameras, but probably much more quickly.
Why?
Because Cscs already do everything as well or better than Dslrs and in a smaller, lighter, more convenient package. Its not a coincidence that Sony's A7Rii topped the tables in DxOs sensor lab tests for 2 years until toppled by the Nikon A850.
Until last year I was using a Sony A7r, the forerunner of the A7Rii and also in the top 5 until the Pentax K1 took 4th place between the Nikon D810 and D800E. With full frame now available, I decided to abandon Sony in favour of my old favourite Pentax. I don't regret the decision but it left a nagging gap in my camera bag,
Eventually I bought back into the Emount and Cscs with a low cost second hand Sony NEX6. OK, it only has a 16.1Mp Aps-c sensor rather than the 36Mp FF sensor in the A7R but it takes all of my legacy lenses, it takes superb photographs and it is small and light. It has become my go-everywhere camera, pretty much replacing my excellent Rx100ii. If I need the image quality of massive megapixels, or the weirdness of an 8mm fisheye on a full frame sensor I carry the K1 - if I want to use lenses over 100mm or am already weighed down with a tripod I carry the K1 - if I need great low light, high iso performance I carry the K1. For pretty much everything else I use the NEX6. I have a lightweight 35-70mm PK fit macro lens which I also carry - manual focus only but I will come to that.
The photo shows the compact size of the Csc, comparing the NEX6 with 16-50mm with a similar spec Pentax K5 fitted with an 18-50mm and with the full frame Pentax K1 with 28-105mm. Certainly the NEX6 is bigger than the Rx100, but it has a couple of advantages, a larger sensor
(Aps-c vs 1inch) albeit lower pixel count and, critically, a great TFT viewfinder which makes it a "proper" camera.
As for weight, the Nex6 weighs 495g, the K5 weighs 1050g, and the K1 weighs 1550g, all with the kit lenses as shown.
What makes a good TFT viewfinder better than a mirror?
Firstly, you see exactly what the sensor sees, focus peaking can be added to highlight the in-focus parts of the image and the focus can also be manually adjusted.
Sony cameras offer a focus mode called DMF as well as manual and autofocus modes which allows an autofocussed image to be manually tweaked to get the right focus where you want it, additionally this automatically displays a magnified image in the viewfinder.
Manual focussing with MF only and legacy lenses is assisted by the magnified image in the viewfinder or on the screen. With a Dslr this is only possible on the screen with Live View which results in a less stable grip than using the viewfinder on a Csc.
There is no mirror flip to shake the image as every shot is effectively a mirror lock up shot.
How can you adapt so many lenses?
Without a mirror to get in the way, the distance from the mount to the sensor is greatly reduced in the Csc (a downside to this is that more care needs to be taken to keep dirt off the sensor).
The distance from the mount to the focal plane in the Sony E-mount is just over 17mm whereas with Pentax K-mount this is 44mm.
This creates space to fit an adapter, so almost any digital or film Slr lens can be fitted. They will probably be manual operation only but manual focussing is well supported on a Csc (see above) and the viewfinder remains bright when the lens is stopped down (I normally use aperture priority with legacy lenses).
Lenses shown E-mount native 16-50mm, Russian Jupiter 8 50mm f2
with Leica to E-mount adapter, Takumar 35-70 macro with K-mount to E-mount adapter and Samyang 8mm with K-mount to E-mount adapter.
Of course, when adapting lenses they need to be the same distance from the focal plane as in their native camera losing a lot of the size advantage of the Csc.
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| Sony SELP1650 at 50mm |
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| Russian Jupiter 8 50mm |
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| Takumar 35-70@ 50mm |
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| Samyang 8mm - note slight vignetting and fringing in the corners |
It is noticeable how the improved coatings on the modern lenses from Sony and Samyang give a more pleasing colour rendition that the 30+ year old Takumar and Jupiter lenses.
So where are the down sides to Cscs?
Some Csc ranges may be currently lacking a good range of native lenses, this used to be a criticism of the Sony A7 full frame range but this issue has been addressed (if at a high price). There are many lenses available for E-mount, Olympus micro4/3 systems and Fuji and no reason why other manufacturers of Cscs will not follow suit.
The most obvious criticism levelled against Cscs is battery life, and if you are out in the wilds, wishing to shoot thousands of shots without access to mains or in car recharging then you will need a few batteries. After market batteries are cheap as chips and 250 - 350 shots per charge means that most people will never need more than 2 or 3. It is worth noting that the after market batteries may not charge in camera and need their dedicated charger, my Sony will only charge own-brand batteries through the USB port.
Cscs are breaking into the field of professional landscape photography, and wedding and event photographers are increasingly deserting their Dslrs for lighter, flexible, easy handling cameras.
Gradual penetration of professional markets and the ability to provide equal or better images from a smaller, lighter package suggests Cscs are the future and Dslrs the dinosaurs. Even T. Rex went extinct.
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