Ricoh officially discontinues Pentax K-series DSLRs after 23 years, ending production as the last major DSLR maker pivots to an entirely new concept. K-mount stays.
I’ve always wondered why people were so adamant about SLRs even in the digital age. Before mirrorless cameras came out, DSLRs were the only digital option with swappable lenses but I’ve stopped keeping track. Mirrorless cameras have swappable lenses too right? I’m assuming many of them can attach the same ones used with DSLRs.
There are two types of autofocus systems that cameras use, phase detect and contrast detect. Contrast detect is what all point and shoot style cameras (and early mirrorless interchangeable lens cameras) used where they identified contrast of vertical edges and used that to determine if an image was in focus, this is a slow process as the camera needs to figure out what direction to move the focus and check the image at multiple focus positions to compare until the camera determined it was in focus.
DSLRs have a separate sensor up near the viewfinder that does phase detect autofocus, this is different in that it can determine how far the lens is from being in focus and go directly there which makes it significantly faster which was crucial in many professional applications.
Eventually sensor manufacturers figured out how to integrate a version of phase detect into the pixels of the sensor itself. While these didn’t perform as accurately as the separate phase detect arrays in DSLRs, they had an extra trick where they were able to create a hybrid autofocus system that used the phase detect array to get close and then contrast detect to get accurate focus. It was only once this was implemented on mirrorless cameras that the advantages of SLR disappeared.
DSLRs have a separate sensor up near the viewfinder that does phase detect autofocus, this is different in that it can determine how far the lens is from being in focus and go directly there which makes it significantly faster which was crucial in many professional applications.
Please someone tell my D7500 this. I’m genuinely not sure if it’s the camera or my shitty glass, but I have regularly completely missed shots because the camera refuses to focus properly, but also refuses to actually shoot while it’s not in focus.
For a long time mirrorless cameras had terrible battery life and no phase detect autofocus.
A DSLR doesn’t need to keep a screen powered all the time you’re looking through it. Improvements in the battery life of MILCs has made that non-issue for most people though.
Thanks, that’s good to know. I wanna get back into photography since the mirrorlesses are so compact now, but being able to keep my lenses was one thing I needed to know about before selling my old DSLR.
I’ve always wondered why people were so adamant about SLRs even in the digital age. Before mirrorless cameras came out, DSLRs were the only digital option with swappable lenses but I’ve stopped keeping track. Mirrorless cameras have swappable lenses too right? I’m assuming many of them can attach the same ones used with DSLRs.
There are two types of autofocus systems that cameras use, phase detect and contrast detect. Contrast detect is what all point and shoot style cameras (and early mirrorless interchangeable lens cameras) used where they identified contrast of vertical edges and used that to determine if an image was in focus, this is a slow process as the camera needs to figure out what direction to move the focus and check the image at multiple focus positions to compare until the camera determined it was in focus.
DSLRs have a separate sensor up near the viewfinder that does phase detect autofocus, this is different in that it can determine how far the lens is from being in focus and go directly there which makes it significantly faster which was crucial in many professional applications.
Eventually sensor manufacturers figured out how to integrate a version of phase detect into the pixels of the sensor itself. While these didn’t perform as accurately as the separate phase detect arrays in DSLRs, they had an extra trick where they were able to create a hybrid autofocus system that used the phase detect array to get close and then contrast detect to get accurate focus. It was only once this was implemented on mirrorless cameras that the advantages of SLR disappeared.
Please someone tell my D7500 this. I’m genuinely not sure if it’s the camera or my shitty glass, but I have regularly completely missed shots because the camera refuses to focus properly, but also refuses to actually shoot while it’s not in focus.
For a long time mirrorless cameras had terrible battery life and no phase detect autofocus.
A DSLR doesn’t need to keep a screen powered all the time you’re looking through it. Improvements in the battery life of MILCs has made that non-issue for most people though.
Ah, of course! The battery life makes total sense. I’ll have to research what phase detect autofocus means, but thanks for answering.
Yeah, as long as the camera and lens have same lens mount.
Edit: or an adapter I guess.
Thanks, that’s good to know. I wanna get back into photography since the mirrorlesses are so compact now, but being able to keep my lenses was one thing I needed to know about before selling my old DSLR.
The mirrorless lineup from manufacturers has a different mount than their dslrs.
Which DSLR do you have?
It’s ancient. I have an Eos Kiss X4. I think it’s called Rebel ok n North America.
I assume you may need to get an adapter to keep using old lenses after getting new camera. Cannon has 3 different lens mount types from what I know.
Yes they can. the technical difference is only in how the viewfinder works.