Breaking the mirrorless myth: An essay about new not always being better.

The camera industry changed drastically this last decade, and with this essay I’d like to prove why this transformation has been poisonous. Though DSLR’s used to dominate the photography market, they are now almost extinct. Every major brand dropped the mirrors to pivot towards mirrorless cameras; photographers (me included) look down upon the pathetic DSLR plebs. Never have we been so wrong.

Why did the industry pivot to mirrorless cameras?

This technological revolution rescued struggling photography companies, who got their market share obliterated by jaw-dropping smartphone (computational) photography. Companies like Sony, Canon or Nikon needed to provide the amateurs with something new and better, to stimulate interest and fascination again. Thanks to this new technology, images became sharper, focus smarter and speed faster. Unfortunately, and despite the commendable know-how, I strongly believe that these two new ways of taking photos (smartphones and mirrorless cameras) undermine the true essence of amateur photography.

Why are we photographers and not painters?

What differentiates a classical painter from a photographer? Theoretically, they both observe a scene and try to freeze that specific moment in time, to subsequently share it to a larger public. Contrary to painters, it is intriguing to realise that every single photographer enters this hobby because of a deep-rooted fascination for the mechanical and technical aspects of the craft. It’s all about the clicks, the snaps, the rolls, the pops and the flash. The first camera he purchases is invariably simple, lacking advanced features and having seemingly more compromises than benefits. As mediocre as the primitive machine may seem, it challenges the ambitious amateur to elevate his craft to match professional standards. Do not trust the amateur whose very first camera is the newest Leica or Hasselblad.

Plato’s allegory of the cave: or how everyone remembers their first time

The first professional camera: seeing the light

Betrayal of a very old friend: or how selling the X-T3 made me lose myself in useless gear-acquisition

VdVisuals abandoned his camera. He believed he needed in-body stabilisation, so he bought an X-T4. Then, he believed he needed a larger sensor, so he bought a Nikon Z9. Feeling that he missed the old systems, he bought a Fujifilm X-T5. Finally, because of compatibility reasons with the Z9, he swapped the X-T5 for a Nikon Z6iii. But the more he gave them away, the more he came to realize. The pixels would not satisfy, colours turned to grey in his eyes, nor the technology in the world would harm or slake his lust. He cursed himself. Shopaholic he called himself. And he wept, VdVisuals, he wept to be so uninspired. He forgot the snappy shutters… the clicks of aperture rings… the softness of the light. He even forgot manual focus. Mirrorless. Soulless.

After betrayal comes denial: trying to love the Nikon Z9

A loveless situationship

Unfortunately, despite taking this camera with me on many of my greatest adventures, I still haven’t developed any anthropomorphic connection with it. Whilst the little analogue Canon A1, the Sony DSC-P32 or the Fujifilm X-T3 have a special place in my heart, I don’t particularly care about the Z9. In fact, I sold its smaller brother, the Z6iii a few months ago and haven’t thought about it once. The only thing I value about the Z9, is its price tag.

What I learnt from using a flagship mirrorless camera

Mechanical feedback matters

The most important point is that mirrorless cameras create a total mechanical dissociation from reality. To explain this, I reason that it’s easier to talk about musical instruments – more specifically the violin. A decade ago, companies were aggressively promoting digital violins, made from plastics and metal. Technically, they could have been used professionally because the sound engineering was supposed to be very realistic. Ten years later, I still don’t know a single professional violin player who swapped his wooden instrument for this digital medium. The reason is very simple: a musician can somehow “feel” that he’s making a mistake, without even hearing the note. Like the violin, analogue photography is about immediate tactile feedback and incredible muscle memory.

"Like the violin, analogue photography is about immediate tactile feedback and incredible muscle memory."

I have this same sensation when playing the piano. Even the most expensive digital keyboard I ever played didn’t feel as legitimate as a cheap “analogue” one. This is wat probably alienates me from the more modern mirrorless cameras. I don’t receive any physical feedback. There is no mechanical shutter snap that can indicate how fast the shutter fired, image focus is almost entirely based on Auto-Focus because manual focus is impossible to use on modern lenses (there is typically a sensible amount of input lag on electronic focussing systems). It has already happened way too often, that I went home after a shoot, only to find that some of the pictures were blurry or out of focus, despite my strong belief that the image was going to be excellent. This was not the case with my older gear: with those, I felt that the shutter speed was unfitting, and I instinctively knew how much I had to turn the focussing ring to lock onto my subject.

Dependency on technology: are we still photographers or did we become simple operators?

The Nikon Z9, because of all its impressive automatization, isn’t really a ‘camera’ anymore. It’s a sophisticated light-collecting computer that is excellent at calculating how to make a technically perfect visual representation of a scene. The only thing the human must do, is press on the shutter button at a fitting time. Seriously, can we call it a shutter button at this point? Wouldn’t it be more fitting to call it a “save image as” button? When I look at my images on a large computer screen and it turns out that the camera focussed on the wrong thing, it isn’t my failure as a photographer but it’s the failure of a system that didn’t understand what my mind wanted to focus on.

Augmented reality: why looking at a screen is not the same as seeing with your own eyes

Earlier, I talked about how mechanical feedback is crucial to remain synched with your photography environment. To make this digital dissociation even worse, it feels as if the electronic viewfinder (EVF) of mirrorless cameras significantly disconnects me from reality. When I look at my subject through this EVF, I mentally cannot accept that I’m looking at the real deal. No number of pixels or refresh rates is going to change this feeling. This made me think of that one scene in “The Secret Life of Walter Mitty”, where the photographer observes a rare snow leopard and decides to simply watch instead of focussing on taking pictures – just to enjoy the wonderful sight, to imprint the scene into his memory instead of a memory card. If using a camera already distracts us from appreciating the beauty of our surroundings, then using an EVF instead of an optical viewfinder entirely cuts it away from us.

Bolt-action sniper vs. machine gun: use your bullets wisely

Yet another disastrous side-effect of digital cameras, is the sheer volume of photos taken during every event or holiday trip. I went to Uzbekistan, with nothing more than an old Canon A1 and two lenses (a 28mm f2.8 and a 50mm 1.8). I came home with around 300 photos, almost all of them were keepers that I could print or share. If you haven’t seen these photos, be sure to have a look! Click here to discover my Uzbekistan travel stories. Like a sniper in the bushes, I selected my targets, I waited, calculated and only when I was certain of a shot, I squeezed the trigger once. Now, when I go on photography trips, I come back with >3000 photos. It’s the equivalent of a soldier’s run-and-gun strategy. Shoot first (with overwhelming firepower), think later. Not only do I stop really observing or looking around, but I also dread uploading the RAW files on my computer to edit them. As I am writing this essay, I still have thousands of photos from Georgia and New-Zealand to colour grade. Is this what photography is all about? Sitting in front of a PC screen, selecting and retouching thousands of uninspired photos? Maybe this is why I enjoyed my Fujifilm camera so much: the out-of-camera JPEGs had some beautiful colour grading on them already (they call them film simulations…) which meant spending less time editing afterwards.

Conclusion: we’re just a bunch of junkies chasing highs

All this being said, maybe the problem isn’t the camera. Maybe photographers keep buying new gear because they hope to feel once more what they felt as humble beginners: the exciting thrill of experimentation. Are we therefore any different from the heroine junky who chases new highs but never ever gets to experience that first exhilarating rush again?

What now?