Why not call them DSLs?

[Tim Reidy Productions]

some camera terms are stuck

because system cameras in the digital world started with mirrors, mirrorless became the term for the new style.

nowadays we could call film cameras sensorless cameras, but we will probably be stuck with the old moniker

not all camera names all make sense

we have aps-c cameras, but nobody generally calls 35mm cameras in the digital world 35mm.

 

[john isaacs]

Instead of the wacky "mirrorless"?

Mirrorless sounds like "horseless" ... "horseless carriage."

SLR stands for single lens reflex (mirror).

DSLR stands for Digital SLR.

So DSL stands for Digital Single Lens. (no reflex.)

Because a DSLR is a DSL, so you are moving backwards and losing clarity.

MILC is a more precise term, as it excludes DSLRs and MFC (mirrorless fixed lens cameras).

 

[Bob A L]

Not that it's important, but I always wondered this also. There have been digital mirrorless cameras since basically point one in the digital camera timeline. They just recently added interchangeable lens capability and they immediately became the tool to have, even if you only have one lens that stays on the camera.

 

[Richard Butler]

Not that it's important, but I always wondered this also. There have been digital mirrorless cameras since basically point one in the digital camera timeline. They just recently added interchangeable lens capability and they immediately became the tool to have, even if you only have one lens that stays on the camera.

We only use mirrorless and a shortened version of the phrase 'mirrorless interchangeable lens camera.' There was no need to comment on the lack of mirror in a compact camera (or a smartphone for that matter).

The term mirrorless was adopted specifically for referring to cameras that were essentially like DSLRs (typically large sensor, interchangeable lens) but weren't DSLRs. Their behaviour was significantly different to compact (fixed lens) cameras and also from DSLRs, so there was the need to call them something distinct from that.

It's unusual for anyone to refer to compacts or smartphones as mirrorless, because there aren't any comparable cameras that have/had mirrors.

CIPA, the trade body to which most major camera makers belong now classify digital cameras in three categories :

• [Digital still] camera with built-in lens
• Camera with interchangeable lens
  • Single lens reflex
  • Mirrorless

So at this point, it's pretty well established. It's easiest just to recognise it as a name, rather than a description.

Richard - DPReview.com

 

[alcelc]

Some early sources referred the MILCs from Sony as EVIL...







If you read Chinese, EVIL is a general terms referring to Sony MILCs whereas Single Eye Non Reflex camera or Non Reflex camera means MILCs from other brands on camera magazines or from Chinese market, e.g. Tobao.

TBH, MILC is more or less now a standard name for the class of camera. EVIL is rarely heard nowadays.

As to certain degree Sony camera had offered me some bad experiences, never go deep to their product anymore so might not aware they might not ever use the term EVIL...

--
Albert
** Please forgive my typo error.
** Please feel free to download my image and edit it as you like **

 

[JJekyll]

DSL already stands for Digital Subscriber Line

It is hard to find any TLA that does not have another meaning already.

 

[JimKasson]

We only use mirrorless and a shortened version of the phrase 'mirrorless interchangeable lens camera.' There was no need to comment on the lack of mirror in a compact camera (or a smartphone for that matter).

The term mirrorless was adopted specifically for referring to cameras that were essentially like DSLRs (typically large sensor, interchangeable lens) but weren't DSLRs. Their behaviour was significantly different to compact (fixed lens) cameras and also from DSLRs, so there was the need to call them something distinct from that.

It's unusual for anyone to refer to compacts or smartphones as mirrorless, because there aren't any comparable cameras that have/had mirrors.

CIPA, the trade body to which most major camera makers belong now classify digital cameras in three categories :

• [Digital still] camera with built-in lens
• Camera with interchangeable lens
  • Single lens reflex
  • Mirrorless

So at this point, it's pretty well established. It's easiest just to recognise it as a name, rather than a description.

OK, I'll buy that, but I doubt if a Leica M11 user thinks of her camera as a mirrorless one. Ditto a Phase One XT photographer. Or a museum photographer using a Betterlight back on a Master Technika or a SInar P.

 

[Gary Martin]

I just call them all ILCs; I don't find the presence or lack of a mirror to be that significant.

--
http://www.gwmartinimages.com

 

[tbcass]

Hmmm complicated the case of Sony about mirrorless... Or not DSLR

I was sure they used the term mirrorless to ditch their A-mount FF DSLT though.

That happened 10-15 years after the first mirrorless cameras. Sony ditched their FF SLT line only a few years ago and introduced their first FF mirrorless in 2013. When I bought a Sony A55 in 2010 I had to explain to a friend why it wasn't a mirrorless camera even though it had an EVF so the term was common then.

--
Tom

 

[Richard Butler]

I just call them all ILCs; I don't find the presence or lack of a mirror to be that significant.

At this point (now that performance and AF are generally better than for comparably-priced DSLRs), it doesn't especially matter, beyond helping to distinguish between legacy DSLR mounts and mirrorless ones.

In the long run, ILC is likely to be sufficient because there won't be many DSLRs left on the market (like rangefinders they'll be a niche that's small enough to have minimal impact on what most people call the majority of cameras).

Richard - DPReview.com

 

[Grajay]

My thought why not just BWS (box with sensor) it may sort of look like a DSLR or SLR but it’s not and I still like to see how the colours etc as they are not as the camera screen sees them

 

[Ellis Vener]

using DSL as a name. for cameras that can use interchangeable lenses but do not use a preview system built around a reflex mirror mechanism would make it too easy to confuse them with DSLR types.

there are at least three camera designs that aren’t the SLR type: rangefinders, Twin Lens Reflex, view cameras.

I think mirrorless is both a mouthful and not descriptive enough, so I have a better suggestion than DSL: DV. DV is short for Direct View.

After all, what we see in EVF or on the preview screen on the back of the camera is a direct electronic feed from the image recording sensor.

--
Ellis Vener
To see my work, please visit http://www.ellisvener.com
I am on Instagram @EllisVenerStudio
“It's not about the f-stop." -Jay Maisel

 

[rurikw]

for Single Path. Whether DSLRs would be TP for triple path.

 

[JimKasson]

using DSL as a name. for cameras that can use interchangeable lenses but do not use a preview system built around a reflex mirror mechanism would make it too easy to confuse them with DSLR types.

there are at least three camera designs that aren’t the SLR type: rangefinders, Twin Lens Reflex, view cameras.

I think mirrorless is both a mouthful and not descriptive enough, so I have a better suggestion than DSL: DV. DV is short for Direct View.

After all, what we see in EVF or on the preview screen on the back of the camera is a direct electronic feed from the image recording sensor.

I would argue that the image on the ground glass of a view camera is more "direct" that that in the EVF or rear display of a MILC. You could even argue that the image on the focusing screen of an SLR is more direct than what you get with an MILC.

 

[JimKasson]

for Single Path. Whether DSLRs would be TP for triple path.

Don't most MILCs have a signal path for the EVF and another one for the back-of-camera display?

 

[Ellis Vener]

using DSL as a name. for cameras that can use interchangeable lenses but do not use a preview system built around a reflex mirror mechanism would make it too easy to confuse them with DSLR types.

there are at least three camera designs that aren’t the SLR type: rangefinders, Twin Lens Reflex, view cameras.

I think mirrorless is both a mouthful and not descriptive enough, so I have a better suggestion than DSL: DV. DV is short for Direct View.

After all, what we see in EVF or on the preview screen on the back of the camera is a direct electronic feed from the image recording sensor.

I would argue that the image on the ground glass of a view camera is more "direct" that that in the EVF or rear display of a MILC. You could even argue that the image on the focusing screen of an SLR is more direct than what you get with an MILC.

 

[JimKasson]

using DSL as a name. for cameras that can use interchangeable lenses but do not use a preview system built around a reflex mirror mechanism would make it too easy to confuse them with DSLR types.

there are at least three camera designs that aren’t the SLR type: rangefinders, Twin Lens Reflex, view cameras.

I think mirrorless is both a mouthful and not descriptive enough, so I have a better suggestion than DSL: DV. DV is short for Direct View.

After all, what we see in EVF or on the preview screen on the back of the camera is a direct electronic feed from the image recording sensor.

I would argue that the image on the ground glass of a view camera is more "direct" that that in the EVF or rear display of a MILC. You could even argue that the image on the focusing screen of an SLR is more direct than what you get with an MILC.

I owned and used Sinar, Arca-Swiss, Canham, and V-Pan view cameras as well occasionally using Linhof and once or twice Horseman and Toyo view cameras. As direct as what we see(or saw) on the ground glass of view camera is, the ground glass isn’t the device that will be recording the image.

With a view camera the projected image is also reversed (because that is how lenses project an image) in both vertical and lateral directions.

And yes I understand that the image we see when looking at either in an EVF, on the camera monitor, or on a larger monitor, is a JPEG version based on the settings the factory or you programmed the camera to produce, and not the actual “raw” data. And that the image will look different once you run it through your raw processor of choice according to how that program’s developers ideas of what a processed raw image “should” basically look like. But it is closer to being a direct view of what the basic image will look like than I remember seeing on a ground glass, or through the viewing system in an SLR, DSLR, or rangefinder.

The problem I think many photographers face is that they take the interpretation seen through an EVF or on a camera monitor as being the absolute version of what the photo should look like.

Right. I found after using a view camera for a while that I mentally turned it right side up and swapped left and right. In fact, when I first started using MILCs with flip up LCDs, I had trouble framing the image, because it seemed like looking at the waist-level finder of a Hasselblad or Rollei, but left and right weren't swapped, which confused me.

 

[Aaron801]

Instead of the wacky "mirrorless"?

Mirrorless sounds like "horseless" ... "horseless carriage."

SLR stands for single lens reflex (mirror).

DSLR stands for Digital SLR.

So DSL stands for Digital Single Lens. (no reflex.)

... I would say that the SLR part of it was to differentiate that style camera from one that either had a rangefinder VF or a separate lens for the VF, as was the case with the twin lens reflex design (TLR). The term "DSLR" then was of course borrowed from SLR. With mirrorless though, we've moved so far from any kind of design that might have used separate lenses for the VF that the "single lens" part of it seems redundant. Therefore, I don't see that the "SL" designation makes much sense. The naming in each case is to differentiate it from the previous prevailing technology and since we had mirrors directly before, the term "mirrorless" makes sense...

 

[rurikw]

for Single Path. Whether DSLRs would be TP for triple path.

Don't most MILCs have a signal path for the EVF and another one for the back-of-camera display?

 

[Ellis Vener]

Same with using SLRs with removable pentaprism heads , like the Nikon F through F5 models.

--
Ellis Vener
To see my work, please visit http://www.ellisvener.com
I am on Instagram @EllisVenerStudio
“It's not about the f-stop." -Jay Maisel