Mirrorless Cameras

Mirrorless Cameras

by William Lulow

The first mirrorless camera was actually introduced in 2004, just a couple of years after I switched to digital photography. As a note, I hated to give up my view cameras and especially my Hasselblad outfit, but I could see that delivery of jobs to clients was becoming much easier and quicker than film was, and that it was rapidly becoming the way of the future in photography. Also, getting those tack-sharp images I used to get with sheet film was becoming possible with digital cameras. Not only that, but the lenses for digital photography were becoming much better as well, even though I never cared for the “35mm format” which most digital cameras adopted. Hasselblad built their line of digital cameras as well for medium format photographers who preferred that style. I did a lot of jobs in medium format. I even invested in Black & White developing tanks to be able to process 18 rolls of 120, medium format film at a time. And, I got quite proficient at it. 

In the early days of digital photography, I once saw a digital back for a view camera built on a model of the old Polaroid backs. I asked one of my old tech reps about it. His answer was that one cannot really marry the view camera, with its lenses, to the advances in building sensors capable of producing images. The digital cameras were better and the lenses were better as well. That about sealed the deal for me. From then on, I was going be a digital shooter with 35mm format cameras. 

There was no question about the ease of the digital process and Photoshop had many new updates for the post-production side of doing professional assignments. The results I obtained with my early digital cameras were just as good, technically as the ones I was used with film. Now, I didn’t need a darkroom, all the chemicals and processing equipment, drying cabinet, enlargers and printing materials. Now I had to learn the workings of the digital world which I began to do in the early 1990s when Adobe had huge presentations at various Photo Expositions. I found that I got up to speed with the digital processes quite rapidly and am still staying current with new techniques and equipment that the digital world offers including some retouching using artificial intelligence. I had upgraded my digital cameras over the years and finally progressed to a Canon 90D. A sort of mid-level, good digital camera that captured images with a 32 megapixel sensor. I have been quite happy with the results over the last several years. I had a problem with the camera, though. The lenses somehow stopped communicating with the body of the camera. I had to send the camera back to Canon and this necessitated my purchase of a MIRRORLESS DIGITAL CAMERA.  I had been eyeing them for a while, but my work didn’t justify the very high cost of these new cameras until now. 

By the way, the cost to replace my old film version Hasselblad with the digital one, with the lenses I had, would have been in excess of $50,000. This was just way too much for the business I had at the time. In addition, Hasselblad’s digital entry into the field boasted a 50MP sensor, but I have been obtaining very high quality results that even have surpassed the images I made with my film cameras. But, I decided on the Canon R7, a mid-level mirrorless digital camera. I could use my older Canon lenses which were still great, with the use of a special adapter. Even so, the cost of the new camera was around $2,000. I selected the R7 because it had pretty much the same features as the older 90D. This made the learning curve practically non-existent. The menus were almost the same, but no matter how you figure it, upgrading equipment is always a major expense for a studio:

Some of the differences present some minor problems though. For one thing, all the electronic features naturally eat up much more battery power. So after a morning of shooting about a dozen corporate headshots, the battery was low and needed to be replaced. I have several batteries to power all the cameras, so that wasn’t difficult. It’s just something you need to get used to if you’re using these mirrorless, digital cameras.  I can still make use of the lenses I have for the 90D, so I didn’t feel the need to spend extra money on new lenses. The nuisance with the adapter also doesn’t present any great difficulty. When I carry this 16mm mirrorless lens and other regular digital lenses, I just have to remember to take the adapter. 

Here are some images made with this setup:

I have been using a 20mm wide angle lens for some time, but I thought the 16mm would give me a bit more image to work with in post-production for my touring purposes. It’s also a bit lighter in weight than the 20mm with the adapter, so for walking around and making tourist type images it works very well. I sometimes carry just this camera and lens and an extra 85mm lens for making certain views a bit closer. When I’m photographing like this, those are the two lenses that I carry with me. I don’t take the whole bag with me when I’m just exploring. If I need other equipment to make a shot, I will often have to go back to the car and get it. But usually the two lenses are enough for most shots I want to make. 

I have found that the new camera body, the upgraded sensor and the wider lens let me make images that I know I will crop in post-production to make better compositions without the need for carrying many lenses.