O Mirrorless, Where Art Thou?

I had the opportunity to attend the Air Force Academy graduation ceremonies a couple of weeks ago. There were several thousand people in the stands along with almost as many image-making devices. Over the course of more than three hours, I kept a keep eye out for mirrorless and, especially micro 4/3, cameras. What I found was, in order of popularity:

1. mobile phones - maybe 90% + of all cameras there
2. DSLR - Nikon and Canon only. No Pentax or any other brand
3. Superzooms - all-in-one super ~50x super zooms
4. Digital P&S - typical $100 to $200 digicams. Really very few of these, but they were there
5. Mirrorless - ZERO!!! - m4/3, NEX, etc... - ZERO!

I could not believe that I saw no other recognizable mirrorless cameras. My E-P5 was so lonley. I'm sure they were there somewhere. Or were they?



















In any event, a fine Colorado May day.

Jim Pilcher
Summit County, Colorado, USA

Nice pictures. I bet the mirrorless were hiding is small cases or purses.:-D

Yeah, I hear you.

However, last time, I was walking in the center of Brussels (Belgium), I saw a guy using a E-M10 (I think) with the 25 1.8. I smiled, and almost talked to him, but I was in a hurry.

It's so rare to meet someone who's using a micro 4/3 that when it happens, we somehow feel connected.

James Pilcher said:

I had the opportunity to attend the Air Force Academy graduation ceremonies a couple of weeks ago. There were several thousand people in the stands along with almost as many image-making devices. Over the course of more than three hours, I kept a keep eye out for mirrorless and, especially micro 4/3, cameras. What I found was, in order of popularity:

1. mobile phones - maybe 90% + of all cameras there
2. DSLR - Nikon and Canon only. No Pentax or any other brand
3. Superzooms - all-in-one super ~50x super zooms
4. Digital P&S - typical $100 to $200 digicams. Really very few of these, but they were there
5. Mirrorless - ZERO!!! - m4/3, NEX, etc... - ZERO!

I could not believe that I saw no other recognizable mirrorless cameras. My E-P5 was so lonley. I'm sure they were there somewhere. Or were they?

Click to expand...

Maybe HERE ?

T

The thing is, yes, I agree that mirrorless has almost no visibility at all, but do you ever go around and actually look at the DSLRs people are carrying? Almost always it's a kit lens on a crop sensor body at least a couple of generations old that they probably bought on clearance. Do Canon or Nikon actually make money if that's all that they manage to sell? I wonder about that.

At least a superzoom makes a ton of sense in a well-lit outdoor situation like that. A kit normal zoom lens + DSLR? Not so much.

honeyiscool said:

The thing is, yes, I agree that mirrorless has almost no visibility at all, but do you ever go around and actually look at the DSLRs people are carrying? Almost always it's a kit lens on a crop sensor body at least a couple of generations old that they probably bought on clearance. Do Canon or Nikon actually make money if that's all that they manage to sell? I wonder about that.

At least a superzoom makes a ton of sense in a well-lit outdoor situation like that. A kit normal zoom lens + DSLR? Not so much.

Click to expand...

Very true .... I do see quite a few m4/3 in Canada.

Sadly, mobile phone are popular because they are socially acceptable.

Most events here you are not even allowed to bring in a camera anymore.

People are also very shy about being photographed these days.

Seems like the only use for a camera these days is taking pics of close friends and the great outdoors.

M4/3 is great for outdoors and bush trips as they are much easier to pack and lug around.

Day Hiker said:

Jim Pilcher
Summit County, Colorado, USA

Click to expand...

Wonder how much it cost Tax payers for the fly by.

It is worth every penny.

They will save money on recruiting to the academy.

Imagine how many boys watching this wish they were in cockpits.

Certainly they were all missing out since your photos are quite clear and sharp and colorful.

My informal survey:

Epcot all day with hundreds with cameras, not one M43, many, many Canon Rebels with kit lenses, followed by Nikon 3200's with kit lenses, followed by P&S cameras.

Vancouver, Seattle, Whistler: Canon and Nikon enthusiast-level DSLR's with quality lenses (many Asian tourists with these), some retail DSLRs, P&S, maybe a few bridge cameras, and one, again only one possible M43 sighting.

So my research bears out your observations.

Also, no Sony cameras like NEX 6 or A7/A7R.

Interpreting the vapor trails: a big M, 4 jets, 3 long trails.

49 years ago..... :-D

Spent about 2 hours at a Children's Day event in Sacramento a few weeks ago. Saw 2 Oly m4/3s that were either EM-5 or EM-10s. One had the 12-40 on it. First time I've ever seen m4/3's in the wild.

When I take the EM5 or EM1 out, I don't tend to see other mirrorless cameras. But, this doesn't affect the performance of either camera, in the slightest.

Matter of fact, I don't even see that many dslr's in use any more.

Makes me wonder how many of those dslr's sold over the last 10 years weren't used for anything more than family snapshots.

I'm starting to see a lot of mirrorless in Juneau, where we get 2-5 cruise ships a day. Not so much from locals, though there are some, but from overseas tourists. Lots of Sony's, a fair number of EM5's, the occasional Panasonic and a fair number of Fuji. DSLr's still in abundance, but less so.

There is a definite change from a few years ago.

I go to a couple/few higher-end, handbuilt bicycle shows every year, and I find mirrorless cams fairly well represented. There's always a spinkling of Oly/Panny M43, Sony NEX and Fuji X. Interestingly, or weirdly, Fuji X100/X100S are my most-spotted mirrorless cam, if we're allowed to include them with interchangeable-lens CSCs i/o P&S.

Mirrorless continues to struggle for acceptance in the Americas. However, the a6000 is selling very well on Amazon USA and, for a day or two was outselling the top DSLR (Canon T3i).

Jan-Apr CIPA data indicate that mirrorless shipments were down 25.8% to the Americas compared to the first four months of 2013, but worldwide mirrorless shipments were up 12.2% and the value of shipments was up 38%. DSLR shipments to the Americas were down 25.7% and 17% worldwide.

On the other hand, I was in Iceland on holidays, and saw plenty of mirrorless cameras. Not as many as DRSLs but quite a few including Sonys, Panasonics, Olympuses and Fujis.

I had several family members at the Air Force Academy graduation too. Nice pictures. Maybe I'll print some of them since my wife and her family could not be bothered to take pictures with anything more than their smart phones even though I offered several cameras for them to borrow. Of course, pictures of jets overhead taken with a smartphone look really nice <sarcasm>

I was at one of my states' premier tourist attractions over the weekend and I observed all the camera gear people were carrying. Of course about half were using phones, but there was also a good number with dslrs, mainly families with children. Some travel zooms. No mirrorless.

The growth in sales for mirrorless is stalled until the manufacturers can spend a lot of money marketing them. DSLR is still the default choice for families when mom or dad think they need something more serious than a phone or a p&s. Most people cannot be bothered to do basic internet research on cameras. I lost interest on cameras for many years, back before the first mirrorless, and when I decided to get back into the game, it only took me a day of internet research to inadvertently find this new thing called mirrorless, and read all about it. That's even too much work for the average consumer.

The enthusiast market already know about mirrorless. The much, much bigger non-enthusiast market does not. They do know about dslrs because they have been around longer and their form factor made it easy for people to recognize them as an evolution from the film slrs. Canon especially spent heavily on advertising dslrs during the switch to digital. I can still remember those Andre Agassi ads on TV.

Unfortunately, at this moment in time, the mirrorless players except for Samsung are not in good financial health. They don't have the promotions and distribution budget, and can not lower prices to nonprofitable levels. So mirrorless is stuck in the sales chart.

The Military Industrial Complex (J. Galrbaith) in the US being among the most reactionary in the World it is no mystery they don't indulge in a sissie's sytem as m4/3 .

Tough luck if most of future users are from Russia or China, USAF will stick even more to their patriotic dSLR cameras. 'Ah, the wonderful smell of Napalm' (Apocalypse Now).

Check, shoot. Check, shoot. Ah the wonderful sound of the breechblock

I walked the Brooklyn Bridge a few weeks ago, feeling unjustifiably annoyed every time I saw a Canikon DSLR ("they are soo ignorant!.. ugh, look at those heavy huge cameras") and inexplicably happy to see mirrorless, whether it be a Samsung or Sony. Saw quite a few Olympus pens. Yes, most of the mirrorless were carried by asian tourists.

I carried my e-pm2, and got a few good shots, will share them when I can.

I will say, though, on the same weekend I got my hands on my dad's film slr. I loved looking through the OVF, and using the viewfinder element that converges or diverges based on the focus. I had never noticed that before. I happen to be a fan of manual focus, and this method of focusing (focus indicator??) seems to be the "old" way of "focus peaking." Interesting! However, I'm not sure if using focus indicator would give me much sharper focus than using magnify view+peaking on my Olympus.