Mirrorless - what camera?

FlyTVR

FlyTVR

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Apologies for the controversial thread title.

So, this is where I am. I shot my last wedding a year ago. After the wedding, I put down my kit (5d3 x 2, 5d2 x 1, 70-200 F2.8, 24-70 F2.8, 85mm F1.2, 35mm F1.4) and I've not touched it since :(

I'm off on holiday next year (Australiam gliding course), and fancy trying out photography again. I'm thinking of going mirrorless but don't really know if I should look at Sony, Fuji, etc. I have ZERO intention of going back to professional photography, but am sort of attached to my lenses.

What camera would you go for?

Many thanks

Dav
 
Well... there is a Canon FF mirrorless option now. You could use your existing lenses via an adapter.

If you are looking at cutting edge ability then maybe the Sony A7x range has the edge but if you're not looking for cutting edge eye AF and tracking ability and don't want to shoot a zillion shots a second just about anything will possibly be up to it and the mirrorless world is your oyster.
 
Thanks Alan - what's the Canon option?

I feel like I've been on a different planet for 10 years, come back and everything has changed :)
 
FlyTVR said:
Apologies for the controversial thread title.

So, this is where I am. I shot my last wedding a year ago. After the wedding, I put down my kit (5d3 x 2, 5d2 x 1, 70-200 F2.8, 24-70 F2.8, 85mm F1.2, 35mm F1.4) and I've not touched it since :(

I'm off on holiday next year (Australiam gliding course), and fancy trying out photography again. I'm thinking of going mirrorless but don't really know if I should look at Sony, Fuji, etc. I have ZERO intention of going back to professional photography, but am sort of attached to my lenses.

What camera would you go for?

Many thanks

Dav
Click to expand...

If you want to save the hassle of a complete system switch, keep your lenses and get either the canon eos r or eos rp. The lenses will work perfectly adapted on either camera.
 
One of the reasons for going mirrorless is the lighter lenses, so staying with Canon would mean a lighter body but still a lot of weight.

I DID change to mirrorless a few months ago - Nikon to Fuji. It was a big decision but so far so good. Take out more lenses than I used to and the line up is cracking!
 
If you're attached to your lenses then the most logical option if you really want to try mirrorless is the Canon EOS R or RP as Jonathan suggests. It would the least painful switch for you.

But then you have to ask, what is it made you stop so cold to begin with? doubtful it was just the gear, sounds more like you lost you mojo - and this happens us all. It happened to me a few times, but the worst case was after returning from a trip to Italy a few years back and after processing the images from the trip and putting the gear away I never touched the gear again for a couple of months. And that gear was losing value all that time. Maybe it was the come down from traveling to such a beautiful place and all around me now seemed bland? Maybe it was just fatigue after the trip at first, and I never really switched back on?

When I started looking back online at photography sites and forums it was mirrorless that caught my eye. I didn't really think about it much, just decided I was selling all my Nikon gear and going to give Fuji a try out. And I just went for it. It was a good decision, as it got back out photographing, and I was enjoying it! Might have been the much lighter gear, or just the overall change, trying something new etc ... but it worked for me. It may or may not for you - but I think you have to try.
 
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I've kept my Canon gear and bought into Fuji mirrorless purely to use the lighter weight stuff to actually takem y camera gear with me, less weight, less monetary value etc means I don't have to worry about leaving anything in the car or lugging shed loads of weight around.
As an aside I think the output from Fuji is "better" (whatever that means).
As I have posted elsewhere I have had a problem with the camera but if it's dead I'll replace it with another Fuji and put it down to a bit of bad luck but I still think the format etc is the way forward for some of my photography and will enable me to enjoy the hobby again.
 
As above, if you want to keep your lenses then the obvious route is the Canon EOS R, but why do you want to swap and what's made you not touch your current gear? If it's down to size and weight the the EOS R isn't going to help a great deal with either. If you want to substantially change bulk and weight you're going to have to look at a different format such as m4/3.
 
Really depends what kind of size and lenses you want. If you wanted to stay with full frame the Sony can offer a number of compact lenses I don’t think any of the others can yet.

The Samyang 2.8 and 1.8 lenses and the Sony nifty 50 are small and light.

But as others have mentioned, you can use your lenses on the new EOS but it’s not going to save you a huge deal in weight.
 
Mines the opposite reason to change a major heart attack earlier this year meant I had to reduce carried weight as just walking was hard .. after a brief dabble with both the canon M series and panasonic last year I knew what to expect and after some research went for the Olympus omd1-mkii which is the best choice I have ever made .. don’t discount the MFT system as the results speak for themselves
 
I was in a bit of a rut a few years ago, rarely taking any pictures on my FF Canon kit.

I decided a switch to mirrorless was the solution, this was before the Canon FF mirrorless range was released, but I would have treated it the same as Sony - the bodies were a move size, but the lenses were no smaller. I narrowed my choices down to Canon EOS M, and Fuji. Fuji won our with better handling and amazing, yet tiny lenses. The build quality is on par with pro Canon gear, just smaller.

I ended up trading in a heavy bag of Canon gear, including the 70-200f2.8 that I thought I’d never part with (but in reality had not left the house in over a year), for a much lighter bag of Fuji kit. I haven’t looked back, I’m shooting loads more a d most importantly enjoying it! I do miss the quality of full frame/fast prime in some situations, but 99% of the time the Fuji is way better.
 
Craikeybaby said:
I was in a bit of a rut a few years ago, rarely taking any pictures on my FF Canon kit.

I decided a switch to mirrorless was the solution, this was before the Canon FF mirrorless range was released, but I would have treated it the same as Sony - the bodies were a move size, but the lenses were no smaller. I narrowed my choices down to Canon EOS M, and Fuji. Fuji won our with better handling and amazing, yet tiny lenses. The build quality is on par with pro Canon gear, just smaller.

I ended up trading in a heavy bag of Canon gear, including the 70-200f2.8 that I thought I’d never part with (but in reality had not left the house in over a year), for a much lighter bag of Fuji kit. I haven’t looked back, I’m shooting loads more a d most importantly enjoying it! I do miss the quality of full frame/fast prime in some situations, but 99% of the time the Fuji is way better.
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There are plenty of lenses in the Sony system, that are smaller and weigh less than their dslr equivalents.

Just of the top of my head.

Samyang 18mm f/2.8
Samyang 24mm f/2.8
Sony 28mm f/2
Samyang 35mm f/2.8
Sony 35mm f/2.8
Sony 35mm f/1.8
Samyang 45mm f/1.8
Sigma 45mm f/2.8
Sony 55mm f/1.8
Tamron 17-28 f/2.8
Tamron 28-75 f/2.8
Sony 24mm f/1.4 GM

Tamron also have a few new lenses that are about to be released which are also smaller and lighter than their dslr equivalents.

20mm f/2.8
24mm f/2.8
35mm f/2.8
70-180mm f/2.8.

And that is just the auto focus lenses. There are also several very light weight high performing Zeiss, Voigtlander and other brands manual lenses and light weight legacy glass options that can be used with an adaptor.

Yeah you could save a bit more weight by losing performance and dropping down to APSC with Fuji, Sony, Canon or Nikon APSC mirrorless or dropping down further to M43 with Olympus or Panasonic.

One of the things that Sony is killing it on though in regards to full frame mirrorless is as well as having the best performing bodies they also have excellent lens choice partly due to the support from third party manufacturers like Tamron, Samyang & Sigma. So yeah if you want the best image quality lenses like the 85GM for example will weigh around the same as the DSLR equivalents but there is also plenty of choice at the other end of the scale if you want small and light.
 
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f/2.8 said:
There are plenty of lenses in the Sony system, that are smaller and weigh less than their dslr equivalents.

Just of the top of my head.

Samyang 18mm f/2.8
Samyang 24mm f/2.8
Samyang 35mm f/2.8
Sony 35mm f/2.8
Sony 35mm f/1.8
Samyang 45mm f/1.8
Sony 55mm f/1.8
Tamron 17-28 f/2.8
Tamron 28-75 f/2.8
Sony 24mm f/1.4 GM

Yeah you could save a bit more weight by losing performance and dropping down to APSC with Fuji, Sony or Nikon APSC mirrorless or dropping down further to M43 with Olympus or Panasonic.

One of the things that Sony is killing it on though in regards to full frame mirrorless is as well as having the best performing bodies they also have excellent lens choice. So yeah if you want the best image quality lenses like the 85GM for example will weigh around the same as the DSLR equivalents but there is also plenty of choice at the other end of the scale if you want small and light.
Click to expand...

:plus1: Les :)
 
One good thing about the Sony FF system is that if you want state of the art performance in a body and lens combination you can have that. It'll possibly still be smaller than a top end DSLR and similar lens simply because the body is smaller but it may not be significantly smaller to the point that size and weight alone are the deciding factors. However with the Sony FF family you can choose a small body and a small lens for a combination that's winter coat pocketable and I don't know if there's any DSLR and similar lens combination that's that small.

I don't know what's available in the Canon and Nikon mirrorless ranges but hopefully they'll be able to offer equally compact kit if not now then at some point as having a FF digital camera the size of a film SLR (but heavier as some film SLR's weighed next to nothing) is IMO fantastic and a real change from the bloated things DSLR's and some of their lenses became.
 
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