Why I Changed from DSLR (Canon) to Mirrorless (Sony)

Photography

After I saw the announcement of the SONY A9, it appeared to be an inflection point in modern image capture technology to me, so I researched a lot and read a lot about mirrorless technology and tracked the evolution of it as well as reading and watching many U-Tube videos by hands-on users and became more convinced that I needed to try one for myself because all the claims by many different people seemed too good to be true!

I had been a Canon guy for 19 years and know the CANON SA people well. I then wrote to them to ask what CANON thought about mirrorless technology, and what, if anything, were they doing about challenging the SONY A9 when it hit the world stage and smashed the 1DXMKii and the NIKON D5 out of the park! The response was totally underwhelming, and all I got was “Yes but you can’t get 20 frames per second with flash, and SONY don’t have any decent glass!” When I saw that I just laughed because most certainly if you use a Roto Light or similar strobes, you will achieve 20 FPS… The G Master lenses are every bit as good, if not better than many of the CANIKON lenses which once ruled the world stage.

  • Bearing in mind that gap between the rear-most glass element of a lens and the face of a sensor in a DSLR body has a specific distance.
  • Mirrorless bodies have no internal mirror / pentaprism and far fewer moving parts, so that gap is much closer, so adapting lenses built around DSLR bodies do work (sort of…) but adapting a foreign lens to a SONY mirrorless body is simply a compromise to try and use old lenses.
  • G Master lenses are custom designed for SONY Full Frame mirrorless bodies. *Using an adapter does work (Depending on which brand, some are better than others) but in actual fact, it is simply a compromise. G Master lenses are far superior and deliver 100%
  • When I sold all my Canon equipment, I sent it to ORMS in Cape Town to check it out and get it to absolutely perfect factory specifications before I sold it. They discovered that there was play at all the body/lens mountings which had to be fixed. *That’s what heavy lenses do to camera bodies!!
  • EVF (Electronic View Finder) is a live view and you can adjust all settings to get them right before shooting a frame, knowing that what you see is what you get. The screen / Inside the viewfinder has a histogram and an EV Compensation monitor for fine tuning.
  • If you are outside in very bright conditions, you simply review a shot via the viewfinder… Now that’s very handy.
  • Mirrorless is totally silent (Great for functions etc) * But I prefer to set a simulated shutter sound.

Comparing the Canon 1DX MKii against the SONY A9

CANON 1DX MKii
1.544 Kilos
158 x 168 x 83 mm
SONY A9
0.673 Kilos
127 x 96 x 63 mm
CANON 200mm – 400mm f4 +1.4x
3.62 Kilos
366mm + Hood
SONY G Master 100mm – 400mm +1.4x
1.395 Kilos
205 + Hood
All-up Weight
5.164 Kilos
2.068 Kilos

Click here for the DXO Equipment and Image Comparison.

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