NEWS: Sony kicking booty! The #1 Mirrorless brand..DSLR sales decline.

NEWS: Sony kicking booty! The #1 Mirrorless brand..DSLR sales decline

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Today Sony sent me over a new blurb that validated and verified what I have been saying for the past few months..that Sony is now leading the camera market..and for good reason, they are one of the only TWO pushing the envelope and forging ahead with new and exciting things. Olympus would be the other company I feel is really pushing the Envelope. (Though I am using the Samsung NX1 that is also quite special). DSLR sales are down, mirrorless is up and Sony is leading the way.

Take a look at their blurb and charts they sent over…

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The Mirrorless Movement: Sony Boasts Record Growth in Expanding Mirrorless Digital Camera Market

SAN DIEGO, Jun. 3, 2015 – Sony Electronics – an overall leader in digital imaging and the world’s largest image sensor manufacturer – is experiencing record growth in sales of mirrorless cameras, a rapidly expanding segment of the interchangeable lens camera (ILC) business.

According to The NPD Group, overall mirrorless camera revenue has grown 16.5% over the past 12 months, with DSLR sales declining approximately 15% over the same period. During this time, Sony has experienced a robust 66% boost in their company’s mirrorless camera sales, strengthening their dominant position as the #1 overall mirrorless brand, a position they have held for 4 consecutive years. 

“Growth in the mirrorless segment shows this new technology and form factor are resonating with consumers,” said Ben Arnold, executive director, The NPD group. “Going forward, mirrorless will continue to command a greater share of the interchangeable lens camera category.”

On top of the sales momentum, InfoTrends’ customer surveysdemonstrate how strong innovation in the mirrorless space is continuing to attract a younger and more photo active ILC customer. The latest data shows that over 61% of first time ILC buyers are under the age of 35, up from 54% approximately two years ago. Key motivating factors for their photography include travel and family..

“First time buyers in today’s ILC market will play an integral part in future growth of the segment, especially considering the increasingly younger customers that are buying into new systems,” said Ed Lee, group director of the Consumer and Professional Imaging group at InfoTrends.

This news comes on the heels of the Consumer Electronics Association (CEA) decision to recognize “Mirrorless” as the official term for interchangeable lens cameras that do not include a mirror mechanism.

“This information shines a spotlight on where the mirrorless market has been, where it is today, and the bright future it presents,” said Neal Manowitz, director of the still image business at Sony Electronics. “Our business continues to thrive based on strong innovation and the unique value propositions we are delivering with products like the α7 series and the α6000. Their impressive imaging credentials allow photo enthusiasts, hobbyist and professionals to capture content in ways they never before thought possible.”

Supporting charts / data:

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Please follow #SonyAlpha on twitter for the latest α camera news.

62 Comments

    • Shipments have to turn into sales or else you see inventory bulges on the camera companies’ quarterly numbers. While there’s been some channel stuffing–particularly in the gray market–the NPD numbers for DSLRs in the US sold at retail are a pretty good match on an annual basis to the CIPA shipment numbers. Not perfect, but close.

  1. Personally, I am still using a 6 year old DSLR, and a Ricoh GR. This is a great combo, that does everything I want in photography at the moment. I have no need to upgrade anything right now. Eventually, I will need to upgrade, and I follow the market pretty closely. Any future camera for me is going to have to be full frame, so that pretty much means Sony, Canikon, or Leica.I am not a fan of rangefinders, so that leaves Sony, or another DSLR. The Sony A series, while very innovative, still just doesn’t come close to the full, refined package that you get in a DSLR, and I suspect it will be still be some years until that is the case. Unless Sony fix many of the issues that they still have with the A series, I will probably stay with DSLR’s, and I think many others will as well.

  2. This is a dumb announcement, and it has got way more attention than it deserves. I suspect the Sony marketing dept are ecstatic it has got such wide coverage. As to kicking butt: you’d have to see the bottom line to see if that is true. As to

    “Their impressive imaging credentials allow photo enthusiasts, hobbyist and professionals to capture content in ways they never before thought possible.”

    What nonsense: pure marketing guff. Can the Sony cameras work in places no DSLR or GoPro can, can they think for themselves, miniaturize themselves, fly, dive under water? What about the other mirrorless too? Are they completely unable to generate the same content?

    I know it’s just a throwaway conclusion from the news release, and the other manufacturers say equally silly things, but it doesn’t stop it being hyperbolic nonsense

  3. I as an amateur like Sony APS-C digital mirrorless, because of small size, small weight and, at least in the meantime, a nice selection of lenses. I can squeeze the Nex into my regular bag, but for DSLR I would an extra bag or a larger bag that no longer is permitted as cabin luggage. If I were more price sensitive, in need of fast AF or, even more important, fast start-up, I would still go for DSLR

    Unfortunately the sensor architecture does not permit really compact wide angle lenses, like for film mirrorless. The longer lenses are the same size for DSLR anyway. With “full frame” that becomes annoying. And most lenses for “full frame” mirrorless are much more expensive than for “full frame” DSLR,

    I enjoy to adapt vintage (and cheap) manual glass to mirrorless. I admit I play and collect rather than shoot, but that is fun, too. With the APS-C crop you loose the wide angle effect, but most (and the cheaper) vintage wide angle SLR glass isn’t that great anyway, even less in comparison to the current and very affordable Sigma DN range. On the other hand for tele and macro I appreciate the crop. I have a stash of cheaply acquired Minolta MD 50 to 300mm glass and 60 to 600mm Novoflex gear.

    So overall I find “full frame” mirrorless much less tempting than APS-C mirrorless. Even APS-C digital is so much better than “full frame” ISO 1600 film that I do not bother to upgrade to “full frame” digital. I would not buy “full frame” for mainly using a “kit-” or “travel-” zoom.

    • Hi: The more I read about the new mirrorless Sony’s, as much as I thought I’d be moving over to the system, I’m probably sticking with Canon. My other mirrorless, my M240 & lenses just work without compromise. The difference in image quality (excepting the A7S in low light)? No client will notice. The backend support for Canon is far ahead of anything else. The backend support for the Leica is crap, but the ease of use is better than anything IMO. In summary, it seems like all systems have some compromise or another, but Canon has the least in compromising features. I got sick of the weight, but the YMCA has fixed that issue for me.

  4. Just back from a vacation in France and England. If there is any trend at all, it is the percent and number of travelers who are relying totally on their smart phones to take travel snapshots. And even the “way to large for me” iPads. The reason is obvious and has nothing at all to do with a discussion among photographers about camera sales. These cameras are free, and go with you everywhere. Gosh, what a nice product idea! The primary purchase objective is to get a smart phone. Since all have cameras–improving ones–these are simply required secondary functions. But alas, one that wipes out any need for a similar P&S camera that used to be necessary but lacked the capacity to automatically email copies of snapshot via social networks. Even my wife started doing this on the recent trip. So, we–concerned photographers on Steve’s forum–cannot really compare the cameras and tools that we are interested in to smartphones. There’s only one hitch here: it’s very likely that the huge sales in P&S film (first) and then digital cameras later helped pay for all the unbelievable innovations that we reap for our DSLR’s and new mirror less cameras. This is what worries me. If SONY, for example, as a company is losing money overall, then how much longer can they support the great job they are doing improving the kind of cameras that we use? Nikon, Cannon, Olympus, etc. . . . doesn’t really matter. They are all great cameras, great sensors, and great lenses now. That is, today. You can hardly go wrong with any of them, starting with the Ricoh GR and Nikon Coolpix A under $1,000 (the latter now under $500) and then on up to the higher priced DSLRs. To me, they’ve all reached a plateau in quality that we’ve been waiting for since digital took over from film. Where does this go from here? What do you do when one of you bread and butter products is now given away for free?

    • Mmmm. I own Leica and Sony, and using the A7Ii I get “Leica Quality” in spades. In fact, it is slightly better than M 240 quality. Thats a fact.

      • Build Quality. Leica will last for years and feels so solid. Sony just does not have the feel of “build quality”. Its a lightweight point and shoot. They are like Nikon, flooding the market with too many lightweight cameras that will not last.

    • Define “Leica Quality”. Quality of the camera build? Quality of optics? Quality of images produced? Certainly not the quality of the sensor they use, because that lags badly behind Sony’s sensor tech,

      “Leica Quality” = Pink Unicorn … IMO.

      • My M240 has equal or better image quality to the best Canon has to offer. The Sony’s sensor quality? I really don’t feel the majority of clients would notice excepting maybe the A7S in low light, and to be honest, I light most of my situations so I don’t go above 1000asa when I shoot, usually at 200 or 400. IMO what I think put’s the Leica ahead of the curve, is the optics, be it Leica or Zeiss. I much prefer the precision of MF and readable depth of field scales. Nothing else compares to that level of control for many commercial situations. I look at many of the lens options for the Sony (& native Canon for that matter.) with no scales on the lens barrels to be found.

  5. I don’t think digital mirrorless will take a lead role over DSLR. Not next 10 years. There are too many issues to be fixed.

      • I think everyone’s missing a point. There are advantages to having the phase detect array far from the lenses that split the information. You get far more focus discrimination with the traditional PD style than with on-sensor PD. That’s important for some types of photography. We’ve already seen Canon recently patent a different SLT-type system, and I won’t say what Nikon’s been working on, but I think the mirror-box systems will stick around for quite some time, perhaps forever. They will become more and more niche, though.

        As for EVF-based systems, they’re basically as good as two things: the EVF qualities itself, and the data-off-image-sensor rate. Both those things are progressing in a fairly linear fashion, with regular but incremental improvements.

      • Sony’s market share is 11%. Total IL mirrorless is 26%. The A7 series has already been out for a couple of years. The entire camera industry is shrinking due to the dominance of smartphones. Sony is losing money on its ILM cameras, it’s making money on CCtv, video,sensor and game console sales. Olympus, Fuji etc camera divisions are bleeding money and while Olympus previously had its medical division prop it up,it is now in huge trouble with pending lawsuits as a result of its surgical scopes. (They weren’t approved for use, people died etc)

        So, pushing this advertorial with the catchy headline about Sony kicking booty, then claiming in 2 years mirrorless is going to lead the market while ignoring all factual data.
        It just doesn’t come over as impartial does it?

  6. I’m just happy to see innovation rewarded in the marketplace regardless of brand.

  7. A few points. Today, mirrorless is relatively new. And Sony’s division new. So starting at near zero a few years ago, it’s not hard to imagine an increase.

    As for DSLR sales going down. Much of that has to do with the point we are at currently. The technological advances are not really great enough to warrant buying new cameras. Having a Canon 5DMark2 is good enough for many as the advances in more recent models don’t really warrant an upgrade. We’ve more or less leveled off on image quality, speed, features. Pretty much every new advance is a slight upgrade. Mirrorless will grow as it’s still in it’s infancy. But the leveling off of technology is what really slows the advance of new purchases.

  8. Love all the comments by most of the non Sony users who come up with every excuse to defend “their” brand. I started out with Minolta, who were the leaders in camera technology in the days of film. Canon and Nikon and the others usually followed Minolta’s lead. Now that Sony has taken over from Minolta nothing has changed. Sony are innovative with the majority of the other companies churning out the same old cameras with the odd tweek. I imagine that Canon, Nikon and the rest will, at this moment in time be looking at following Sony’s lead and coming out with mirrorless cameras with EVF.

    • “Love all the comments by most of the non Sony users who come up with every excuse to defend “their” brand.”

      This is not about defending a brand, but trying to find real data. Sony makes fantastic cameras, no doubt about that. The issue is that this press statement is pure marketing fluff using percentages to hide the truth of what is actually happening in the marketplace.
      Posting this deliberately misleading press release from Sony under Steve’s heading ‘Sony kicking booty” is just an ad for Sony that hides real state of the camera marketplace.
      Reading Thom Hogan’s real analysis of the market (several posts up) is far more revealing.

      If all you care about is a dramatic headline that is factually incorrect, then read no further.

      • It’s not about brand loyalty, it’s about reality. Sony remains a niche player in overall camera sales and are handily trounced by Canon and Nikon. Being number one in mirrorless is a bit like being the richest person in Madagascar.

        Also, saying that Minolta were the leaders in camera technology in the days of film is a blanket statement. They certainly did innovate some things (first with multi-mode and programmed exposure control, and first with SLR autofocus, though the latter was actually adapted from a Leica patent), but Canon were actually the first to introduce all electronic CPU exposure control (AE-1) and Nikon were the first to introduce multi-pattern metering (FA) and automatic matrix-balanced fill flash (F4, F-801).

        Bottom line: they all made important contributions to camera technology.

        If Nikon and Canon do decide to introduce mirrorless systems in a determined, serious way (and I’m sure designs already exist on the table), they will do so when the numbers make sense, not when the pundits think they should. And when that happens — given Sony’s schizophrenic history with system introductions and dedication — it will likely relegate Sony’s mirrorless cameras to also-ran status.

        • I agree with Robert. When Canon does introduce something, they will blow past Sony IMO. They’re just too big, and too well established in the pro-market. They just need to release something that has many pro features, including dual-card slots among other things. Maybe they just want to get it completely right from the get-go.

  9. Yeah, but maybe Fuji, Samsung or Nikon could also produce some blurbs that look like they’re doing just fine.

  10. It’s telling that the self-serving press release doesn’t use actual unit or dollar numbers, just percentages. That’s not a coincidence.

    A sales from 10 units to 20 is a 100% increase, but still not a lot of units. Expressing their volume in just percentages seems designed to obfuscate rather than reveal.

    These numbers are essentially just for a one year period, which is not really enough to indicate a real industry trend. Sony slashed prices on A6000 packages last Fall, as well as on the remaining first gen A7, and must have shipped a ton of units. I’m sure those great prices on great cameras helped these numbers greatly. But is buying market share sustainable? Can it be profitable?

  11. The pie (i.e. total camera market in terms of units sold) is shrinking. The real information is that Sony`s tiny slice of the pie, as a percentage of the total, is growing. Bottom line is: bad news for the camera market. A little less bad news for Sony. Money wise, Sony`s camera unit is bleeding.

    • All of Sony’s divisions are bleeding. Electronics have been lost to the Koreans. Gaming is being lost to the Internet (and startup platforms that get funding on Kickstarter). And their film and television holdings are under siege as well (and that was before the cyber attack at Sony Pictures Entertainment).

      How long they remain in imaging is anybody’s guess. Of course, the dedicated imaging companies (e.g. Nikon) face an even more precipitous challenge ahead, since they’re not diversified enough.

      There’s blood in the water right now, and it will be interesting to see who is left standing in 10 years.

      • Sony is likely to remain in imaging. The question is what does “imaging” mean? It’s looking more and more like the high end is what they succeed at best. Which means lower volume of sales, but decent sales numbers. However, I’d point out that Sony really needs to make sure that they understand what “high end” means. 11-bit lossy compression as the best data quality is not “high end.”

  12. The very fact that the Sony ‘a series’ is so compact, combined with Sony’s close relationship with Zeiss, made me rethink ‘maker loyalty’. The new Loxia lenses are quite something, and the Otus 55 is rated as perhaps the best lens ever…and now the Batis lenses are due. I am not a fan of adapters, and the quality of Zeiss lenses justifies the price, regardless of the fact that they are made in Japan.
    Combining Zeiss with the Sony a7 series, the results are stunning, the pure enjoyment of handling a small compact mirrorless with the capabilities of that of top of the range Canon and Nikon is something else, and the ‘breeze block’ normally hanging around my neck is rapidly losing favour.
    I do understand that it all depends on what your direction is in the photographic art. For landscape work, Sony’s a7 series is hard to beat.
    Technology will never slow down, and the predictions that Sony will become the leaders in the field of mirrorless cameras will happen unless Canon and Nikon get their act together.
    Money will be the motivating factor…….

  13. Would be interesting to know if mirrorless will ever overtake DSLR. Certainly I’m a big EVF fan and love mirrorless, also because of the lighter camera weight. I feel I’ve bought my last DSLR and will only buy mirrorless here out.

    From the statistics I’ve seen mirrorless cameras are just under one-third of DSLR sales. I think Sony is making the right bet on the future.

    • You can do some extrapolation of the numbers. If we are currently at 67 percent DSRL, 33% ILMC and the growth is as shown in the plot, +12% per year for mirrorless and -18% for DSRL. In two years the markets are about equal, in 3 years ILMC has an advantage. However, it will take 9 years for the total market to regain its current total status. Extrapolating out 1-year is risky let alone 2 or 3, but I think it does say the camera market is in for a continuing bumpy ride.

  14. “Sony sent me over a new blurb … saying … that Sony is now leading the camera market…”

    Errrr, ok … thank god Sony [along with their charts and graphs] are unbiased. 😉

    Not really anything new here. Sony has been number one in mirrorless for a while now, but remain a distant number three in overall sales to Canikon, not withstanding that DSLR sales are down (which we’ve also known for a while).

    Advertorial.

  15. You are stating the obvious. Of course, it is growing faster as it is a new smaller market segment while overall DSLR market is in decline because many people are not getting their photography needs met through mobile devices like the iPhone, or have switched to video devices like the G-Pro.

    The interesting stat to follow is what overall marketshare mirrorless commands, and how that is changing over time.

  16. I should not have written the first sentence. That comes off as rude. But for this marketing statement to have relevance it should include real sales numbers from marketplace, not just percentages.

    Let’s say we have two companies in the market place. Company A sold one camera last year. This year they sold two. Their press release shows a 100% increase in sales. Incredible!
    Company b sold 100 cameras last year. This year they sold 90. Their press release shows a 10% decrease. Who owns the market? The company with the 100% increase in sales, or the company with the 10% decrease in sales?
    This is an over-simplification of the matter, but it does show that more information is needed.

    • Huss

      If you are interest in the details I suggest visiting Thom Hogan’s website (www.bythom.com). He is a Nikon guy and has been writing about this for a long time. He regularly writes about the state of camera sales and the trends.

      The marketing spin is basically true. Sony has been gaining in the mirrorless world, though sales of all camera types are falling. Mirrorless is basically holding steady or gaining total numbers slightly. So the gains Sony is making with mirrorless is keeping them relatively steady compared to the Canikon duo.

      PaulB

  17. Pure fluff. CIPA’s numbers show that mirrorless was down hard last year, -14% sales.

    Mirrorless is tanking just as hard as the big boys.

    Dream on people. Sales up? Suuuure.

  18. Mirrorless cameras have their place but a majority of people who make a living with their equipment are still shooting Nikon/Canon SLR. I can see the consumer side moving to mirrorless as Sony, Fuji and Olympus have compelling offerings. However I don’t think we will see material inroads on the professional side. Not yet anyway. Durability, flexibility, great flash capabilities and IQ when taken as a whole favor a full frame SLR. If camera size and weight are that big of an issue then perhaps the gym is in order. I have multiple cameras I use constantly. Film, digital, MFT, full sensor, crop sensor, etc. with the exception of my large format camera, size and weight is never a consideration as to what I want to shoot. As a rule (often violated)I don’t waste sunny days shooting digital. Thereafter, it is a matter of how automated I want my shooting experience and how much lighting I have. Went to Prague last year and took D600, Fuji 645 MFT, Contax G2 and Fuji X100S. I found myself using D600 75% of the time with Fuji GA645 and Contax G2 remaining 25%. Didn’t use X100S at all. Two years earlier on a trip to Jamaica I shot X100S 80% of the time with the other 20% coming from with Fuji GA645 and Contax G2. All this is to say that at no time was weight or size the factor for me. I put emphasis on weight/size cause it seems to be a big reason why people move away from DLR’s but not I. Your experience will probably differ.

    • Have to agree with you Anthony, the whole size/weight argument never makes sense to me. people are aware that you don’t only have to shoot a 70-200mm all day? Nikon/canon do make light smallish zooms and great primes that are fairly compact. With a blackrapid style strap you would never know the difference, plus you wouldn’t have to use those horrid evf’s.

  19. It is incredible that you are publishing this marketing spin without providing any real figures to back up the statements.
    1/ What is the total size in units/cameras of the IL (DSLRs and mirrorless) camera market?
    2/ What percentage of the total IL market (DSLRs and mirrorless) does Sony own?

    I am not doubting that Sony is the #1 seller of IL mirrorless cameras, but they are not close to the #1 seller of mirrorless cameras. That would be smartphones.
    But what are Sony’s unit sales compared to those of the DSLRs? Sony may have had a sales increase of 66%, but if that 66% is only of a fraction of the market, their total IL sales may still be dwarfed by that of DLSRs.

    Provide the actual sales numbers of cameras sold. That is what matters.

    • 1. Last year, 3.3m mirrorless, 10.5m DSLR. But those are worldwide shipping numbers. The NPD data referred to by Sony is US retail sales numbers from places monitored by NPD. For last year, the corresponding unit volume numbers for the US were 482k mirrorless, 2.7m DSLR. NPD’s full data set shows Canon/Nikon at over 90% of those DSLRs, and Sony in low single digits with the A-mount SLTs. Even if Sony sold EVERY mirrorless camera in the US, they couldn’t reach close to the Canon/Nikon market share in ILCs in the US.
      2. The generally agreed upon number amongst analysts is 15-20% worldwide in ILC, mostly due to strong mirrorless numbers. Nikon is 34%, Canon over 40%, and both those are mostly DSLRs. (This is all based on unit volume and CIPA-derived numbers.) The good news for Sony is that things are once again back to a triopoly in ILCs: the Big Three could be shipping 90% of the ILC units.

      Note that the first chart Sony presented is three-month moving average of dollars growth to Sony. It’s high for 2014/2015 because 2012/2013 were low in the US as SLT sales declined and NEX didn’t really take off here as it did in Asia. Then Sony did A7/FE cameras, at higher prices than NEX, so of course the dollar amounts started rising rapidly. There’s certainly good news in there for Sony. They had declining dollar value per sale, declining sales, and high costs. The A7/FE fixed two of those three for sure.

      Note also that NPD tracks actual cash register slips in the US. Some of the “declines/increases” in that second chart are certainly due to liquidation of older product (mostly previous generation DSLRs) as opposed to higher prices of new mirrorless product (E-M1, X-T1, A7 series).

      I’m a little surprised that Sony’s marketing department went this route, especially since they probably had to pay for the ability to reveal NPD/InfoTrends data. I suspect that this press release is more targeted at dealer efforts than anyone else. Still, if they want to quote NPD, some can quote right back that NPD’s numbers also show SLT to be a total bust. Sony should really be trumpeting two things: (1) most mirrorless unit volume with growth in the US market, which tends to be comparatively mirrorless-averse; and (2) ONLY full frame mirrorless cameras of note, and equal in image quality performance to full frame DSLRs. (Well, okay, not quite. 11-bit lossy compressed doesn’t compare to 14-bit no compression at base ISO. Still, 99% of the user base isn’t going to notice the difference.)

      • I’ve been made aware of a statement by Sony themselves in the Japanese business press. They state that their achieved ILC market share in 2014 was 11%, though I didn’t see whether that number was actual sales or shipments. I guess the analysts were over-optimistic about the A7 success. Still, that would mean 11+34+40 = 85% of the worldwide ILC market goes to Canikony, and the point remains: Sony is #3 in a triopoly.

        Another thing I didn’t point out but did in an article on one of my sites is that Sony’s still camera business is lumped in with their video business. When you look at the numbers that Sony has broken out for that, the pro video side is driving most of the profit for the group.

          • Last calculation I did (a couple of months ago) showed Olympus with a market share of about 3% of ILC. Panasonic is worse.

            Samsung is tough to figure. First, their shipments don’t show up in the CIPA numbers (nor do Leica’s). Most market share numbers are determined via CIPA as its the only long-term stable source of reliable information.

            In NPD retail sales numbers in the US, Samsung often shows up as #3 in mirrorless sales (Sony and Nikon are 1 and 2). However, the US isn’t a good market to judge from, as mirrorless sales here are still very weak compared to DSLRs.

            Every now and again we get a data set that includes Samsung on a broader basis. They do better in cameras than people think, but they’re still way behind any of the Canikony trio. I think it would wrong to dismiss them for another reason: they’ve got the best smartphone/camera integration of anyone to date. If they could ever beef that up a bit and market it right, they’d have a clear advantage over the Japanese competitors.

  20. Sony sales are up and Canon Dslr sales are down, big deal. When the pro market gets interested In Sony mirrorless cameras Canon or Nikon may get worried but not yet. When you see how many Dslr cameras sold compared to Sony or Olympus mirrorless you will get a more accurate picture. The rise of smartphone camera technology has impacted all manufacturers but Sony at least are increasing sales. I have just sold my mirrorless camera system (Fuji X-E2) and gone back to Dslr (Canon) as the EVF experience is not to my taste, but a lot of people disagree and prefer the exact opposite which is fine.

    • One bad experience and you went back to DSLR. You should open your eyes and take another look.

      • Agreed, the NEX-6 (even crop sensor) is light and much faster AEB than flipping a mirror for HDR, with incredible low-light performance, though I’ll agree with Chris_S . . . the EVF does tend to make me sea-sick. Its just getting past the lens/flash investment I already have in Canon. What I really want is the (nonexistent) Mirrorless 5dMk IV that works with all my existing crap. (Says the 7D user.)

      • They are my eyes and I know what I like. I wear eyeglasses and in some bright light conditions I could hardly see through the viewfinder of the X-E2. No problems with my dslr.

        I’ve got no problems with people like you who like EVF’s, why have you got a problem with me going back to my dslr?

        • EVF in low light kinda sucks, I never hear anyone talking about that. On my nex7…shooting at night is hard as it’s laggy and noisy as hell. As shooting conditions get less ideal, EVFs kinda fall apart. BUT…for me a smaller camera is the key, so I just deal with it. But I’m not sure I can say taht an EVF is “better”….it’s not always better

    • Same here. The A7 line is interesting to be used for all kind of lenses and can take great pictures with static subjects. Still the camera itself needs to be improved and refined. With manual lenses, focus peaking is not reliable and magnification distracts from composition. AF is just so so. If FF DSLRs will shrink towards mirrorless size and weight, mirrorless FF cameras will have harder times. I just sold my mirrorless gear since the OVF is a more relaxing experience and DSLRs have better all round capabilities, IMHO.

  21. Events and situations for taking photos- that would explain why we are missing pro features like dual card slots.

  22. Um, does this mean you are reviewing the NX-1?! I don’t know how you can put Olympus ahead of Samsung in terms on innovation. Yes their sensor stabilization is the envy of everyone but it’s kind of old news at this point.

    • It’s MUCH more than their 5 Axis (which there is still nothing close to the 5 Axis in the E-M5II) – MUCH more. They are way ahead of Samsung IMO.

  23. Maybe that’ll get Canons a – – in gear. I have held out on buying into the Sony brand for the moment, hoping that Canon would bring to market a comparable (or better) product offering. I will not wait too much longer

    • I want to jump on the Sony bandwagon too but I am so impressed with the Profoto off-camera lighting systems that I am going to hold out for now. For the meantime, I will slug it out with my Fuji X100S. If I have to wait too much longer for Profoto to expand their compatibility I will be forced to get a Nikon. I just don’t want to. I want a Sony. I really wish Sony would just pick up their phone and make a call to Profoto. Then everything will be right with the universe.

      • I don’t understand. I had a studio with Profoto lights and we used the Sony A7 regularly. The wireless controller works just fine, but you do have to turn off Live View.

        I would like a wireless controller that was compatible with Live View, but the Sony A7 does otherwise work just as well as the Canon.

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