Can a dedicated mirrorless shooter find true happiness with a DSLR?

I am going to leave µ4/3 to a great extent and I am going to buy a full frame DSLR instead, therefore this thread is highly interesting! I have yet to decide which camera I am going to buy, but it will be either the Nikon D610, the Nikon Df or the Canon 6D with a small, but versatile set of primes. The Nikon Df is a great camera and I am interested in that camera, because of being able to mount lenses which are even 50 years old. If I buy this camera, I will most probably use some very nice manual lenses.

If I buy the Df, that will do it for m43 except for the long end stuff. I love the size of the longer m43 lenses and HATE the size of the full frame telephotos. The Olympus 75mm and Panasonic 35-100 are extremely nice and fast lenses. And I REALLY love the way m43 uses stuff like face detection/recognition to make candid portraits easier. I also think I'll probably keep my Panasonic 7-14 because I like being able to shoot from odd angles (particularly very LOW angles) with ultra-wide and would hate to be limited to the OVF or a very clunky live view on the Df for that kind of shooting. So I'm gonna keep one m43 body and three lenses, maybe four (the 12-40 is incredibly useful for some kinds of shooting too, and the 24-70 or 24-80 options for the Df are beyond my size threshold as well - and I don't use zooms enough to care if I have them with me all the time).

But, man, full frame is really pretty addictive. I'm just determined to keep it from getting to be a big bag full of gear, which is why I'd stick with smaller primes (which are around the size of mid-sized primes in m43, like the Pany 25mm).

-Ray
 
If I buy the Df, that will do it for m43 except for the long end stuff. I love the size of the longer m43 lenses and HATE the size of the full frame telephotos.

In my opinion µ4/3 is best for people who want to shoot tele and still prefer a light kit. Small and light wide angle and normal focal lengths can be done for full format, too, as Sony (and Leica before them) has shown.

I have studied my photographs a lot and I have tried shooting only one prime for longer periods. I have come to the conclusion, that I like 50mm on full frame most and I shoot a lot of pictures with 35mm and 90mm, too. Eventually I would add 20mm. I am quite sure, that I would be perfectly fine with these three or four focal lengths. Since I do not take more than two lenses with me, there are not many reasons left, to keep much of my µ4/3 gear, because such a Df kit would be light enough for me.

However, I will indeed keep some of my µ4/3 gear. I will keep my E-P1 with the 2.8/17mm, the 9-18mm and the 1.8/45mm. These lenses are very fine and I like the E-P1 very much. Therefore, I will still have something very light.

(the 12-40 is incredibly useful for some kinds of shooting too, and the 24-70 or 24-80 options for the Df are beyond my size threshold as well - and I don't use zooms enough to care if I have them with me all the time).

When I held the Df for the first time, my impression was, that the Df would work best with small primes. If I wanted to use the Df with zooms, I would buy used manual zooms like the 35-105mm, which is said to be a very nice lens.
 
If I buy the Df, that will do it for m43 except for the long end stuff-Ray

This is somewhat what I'm currently doing.
I'm currently using Micro Four Thirds to exploit the 2.0 crop factor.....

I've got a bunch of AF and 'D' lenses for my Nikon film bodies - so my only glass purchases have been AI & AI-s....
 
Glad you're enjoying the DF Ray. I believe it is simply the absolute best street shooting DLSR available. You have some very difficult decisions ahead. Good luck.

Not so difficult Joe. If I still like the Df as much at the end of the loaner period as I do now, I'll find a way. And if not, there will just be less buying and selling and a bit of money saved.

Street shooting with a DSLR had never really occurred to me, although I did a bit of street work with my film SLRs in the bad old days. I didn't think of street as a category back then - it was all just photography. But as big as DSLRs and their lenses have gotten, full frame in particular, it just never crossed my mind. Until yesterday when I found myself on the street holding one, fired off a few shots and realized it was very much like shooting with the X-Pro, but, for me, better.

Those ballet shots of yours were some of the first shots that really got me excited about the Df. I don't see myself doing much, if any, of that type of shooting. But the quality of the files was evident. And both it's strengths and weaknesses seem to correlate pretty well to my own priorities, so it might just be a match...

-Ray
 
* These "D" lenses aren't quite as brilliant as the thoroughly magical Zeiss on the RX1 (which Luke contends is made from magic Unicorn dust), but if they're the weak point, I'm fine with 'em. And they're the right size and price. Jeez, I could but five primes ranging from 20-85mm for under $1500. One of the advantages of a brand with such a deep background of lenses.
-Ray

You can always buy some Zeiss lenses... add a little unicorn dust. Looking at a couple myself but thinking I should upgrade my camera body first. I'll have lenses and no camera when my daughter takes it :D
 
* These "D" lenses aren't quite as brilliant as the thoroughly magical Zeiss on the RX1 (which Luke contends is made from magic Unicorn dust), but if they're the weak point, I'm fine with 'em. And they're the right size and price. Jeez, I could but five primes ranging from 20-85mm for under $1500. One of the advantages of a brand with such a deep background of lenses.

-Ray

And a mount that hasn't changed in decades.:)
As I said earlier, all of my auto-focus glass is either AF or D glass......and like you said, the D primes are cheap.

Oh and Ray, you can get this AF Nikkor 35-70 ƒ2.8 for under $500 USD in "EX+" shape from KEH....(I figure why pay tons of $$$ for the 24-70) :D





11606841634_7950b45313_b.jpg

Nikon AF 35-70 ƒ2.8 by RedTail_Panther, on Flickr
 
You can always buy some Zeiss lenses... add a little unicorn dust. Looking at a couple myself but thinking I should upgrade my camera body first. I'll have lenses and no camera when my daughter takes it :D

They don't make auto-focus glass for Nikon do they? Even if so, I'm not generally inclined to pay Zeiss prices for lenses until I decided it was somehow smart to buy one welded onto the front of a camera! :eek:

And I'm not really interested in MF glass except maybe in an ultra wide with so much DOF it's sort of a set and forget kind of thing.

-Ray
 
And a mount that hasn't changed in decades.:)
As I said earlier, all of my auto-focus glass is either AF or D glass......and like you said, the D primes are cheap.

Oh and Ray, you can get this AF Nikkor 35-70 ƒ2.8 for under $500 USD in "EX+" shape from KEH....(I figure why pay tons of $$$ for the 24-70) :D

I'm not much of a zoom shooter to begin with and, to the extent I am, 35-70 is pretty much a dead zone for me - I'm happy up to 35 and then again at about 85- 90 when the portrait lengths kick in. But I don't have a freaking clue how to see with a 50-60mm lens and 40 and 70 aren't much better. So this lens would't be of much use to me. Although there are some types of events where a zoom is really useful in it's own right, I otherwise generally just don't use 'em. So knowing the range of "D" glass that out there for so little money, I'm cool as long as I know it's glass I'm satisfied with. And I'm getting that impression very strongly lately!

-Ray
 
They don't make auto-focus glass for Nikon do they? Even if so, I'm not generally inclined to pay Zeiss prices for lenses until I decided it was somehow smart to buy one welded onto the front of a camera! :eek:

And I'm not really interested in MF glass except maybe in an ultra wide with so much DOF it's sort of a set and forget kind of thing.

-Ray

They are all manual, so no. You'd actually have to do it like they did in the olden days :D
 
Old manual lenses - Nikon bodies have a special setting were you just 'register" your manual lenses plus on most bodies there is a green light focus confirm - so focusing old Nikkors is easy

I had about a year using mainly M4/3 stuff - but I always had a Nikon DSLR - I still use my Oly and Pana M4/3 - sometimes!

Most of the time, (I would say 85%), I use my D7100 and D300 with AF Nikon glass - I have lots of old Nikkor lens going back to the mid 1970's, but the one I use most is the 55mm f3.5 micro Nikkor for close ups. Sometimes the 50mm f1.2 and f1.4 get a go as do the 35mm and 28mm, but the AF S 300mm f4 is usually stuck on the D7100 and the 50mm f1.8 G or the Sigma 10 20mm on the D300.

My M8 gets a look in now and again but if I reach for a compact it is usually a canon S95

I still prefer DSLR,s (Nikon), to anything else - as they have so many more features that I use and am used to.
Plus I have always preferred the UI, user interface, over all other bodies

Maybe I will have a go at a FX body next but I much prefer the DX "reach" - as you have probably seen I am into nature photography.
But as the old saying goes "glass" is far more important and although the AF-S 300mm f4 is a stellar lens I really want the latest Nikon 300mm f2.8 VR ll - and I am thinking about selling a couple of my "Rolex" to finance this.

For "reach" the DX body gives you an extra x 1.5 and I have a Nikon x 1.4 TC ll, plus the D7100 has an in camera x 1.3 crop mode. So with the 300mm I can get (up to) 820mm (300 x 1.5 x 1.3 x 1.4 = 820mm) at f5.6 and 15 meg on the image.

If in doubt just buy a good used D300 or D300S, as a starter ……… plus the new entry level 24 meg bodies are now very good, (not sure about the focus confirm on those) - but in reality 14 meg is all that you need.

I also prefer the DSLR "body size" over anything else, apart from the M8 when using it with a 35mm lens
 
Not so difficult Joe. If I still like the Df as much at the end of the loaner period as I do now, I'll find a way. And if not, there will just be less buying and selling and a bit of money saved.

Street shooting with a DSLR had never really occurred to me, although I did a bit of street work with my film SLRs in the bad old days. I didn't think of street as a category back then - it was all just photography. But as big as DSLRs and their lenses have gotten, full frame in particular, it just never crossed my mind. Until yesterday when I found myself on the street holding one, fired off a few shots and realized it was very much like shooting with the X-Pro, but, for me, better.

Those ballet shots of yours were some of the first shots that really got me excited about the Df. I don't see myself doing much, if any, of that type of shooting. But the quality of the files was evident. And both it's strengths and weaknesses seem to correlate pretty well to my own priorities, so it might just be a match...

-Ray

Hi Ray...thanks for all this info...I'm tempted to see what the df 'sounds' like when I can get my hands on one...but from the photos i'd prefer all black, and even then it looks damn busy...there's also some working stuff about it that seems contrary to ease of use, but I've never used one...

my take everywhere camera has been a d700 the last few years (i tired of the small canon a630/a640 I was using) with the 'cheap' d primes mostly, 20, 35, 50, and a 105 2.5 ais which is just wonderful...the only thing I don't like about the d700 is the loud shutter clack...it really draws a lot of attention when working in close...ok, I wish it was half the weight as well, but it's ok...

I've marvelled at the full frame files from day one and they still don't disappoint...I imagine the d4/df files only add to the quality of color, etc...and this is with the middle of the road lenses which I find excellent for what I want, need, for my work...it's been a great street, landscape, and just all around body with the smaller lenses...I've never liked zooms, big, heavy, and they attract too much attention...

about to add a ricoh gr to my bag as my take everywhere camera, this while i wait for nikon to introduce a dx or fx mirrorless I can use with my lenses...it's coming, but who knows when? this year, next?...I'd just like to trade the d700 in for something lighter and smaller...all depends on the execution...the fast focus and focus in near black conditions on the d700 is just amazing and something i don't want to give up...

good luck to you on your decisions about all this equipment you're thinking about...I find it hard to make these decisions for myself...
 
One other thing I failed to mention in the first couple of posts of "impressions":

The battery life is freaking RIDICULOUS! I'd always heard that DSLR batteries lasted a lot longer than mirrorless. I don't know whether this is mostly to do with the lack of constant live view or something else. And evidently the Df battery life is particularly good even among DSLR batteries. But I shot several hundred shots over the course of the day on Friday, did a fair amount of chimping (being new to the camera) and the battery still shows it's dead full - not even down one bar. With mirrorless cameras, changing batteries is a fact of life. I never leave home without one extra and for a full day of shooting, generally two extra. I rarely need the third battery, but it's sometimes a close call. And I always always need the second one. The Df is rated at something like 1400 shots and based on my early experience I believe it. Even in WAY sub-freezing temperatures, I couldn't put a dent in it's battery. I can't imagine needing a second battery with this unless you were just worried about losing one or having a battery just fail completely. But in terms of capacity, I can't imagine ever shooting enough in a day to ever need to have a second one on hand.

I'd often read about how DSLR users like having the SD card slot on the side of the camera rather than the bottom so the can change the card while using a tripod. I never got that - what about having too change the BATTERY when it's on a tripod? I'd never used a camera that would fill up a card faster than it would kill a battery. Shooting raw, the Df will take 800+ images to fill a 32gb card. So, yeah, I guess you could have to change the card before killing a battery. I can't imagine filling a whole card OR using a whole battery in a day of shooting with this thing.

Pretty cool. Not a deal maker or deal breaker but pretty cool nonetheless...

-Ray
 
yes. battery life excellent. last trip to Miami in december I had around 800 images spread over 4 or 5 4gb cards and the battery was only one bar down on the d700...I always carry a second battery and my charger and have never needed them...

thought about this a bit since the announcement of the df and while using the d700 i've never once missed dials on the d700 body...guess I've gotten used to how this body works...think i'd rent a df to experience it before buying...

then again, i guess nikon could release a df-like body (size and weight) with a d800 style...i could live with that...
 
yeah, i wouldnt think twice about just using one battery in my oly e30 for a weekend of taking motorcycle track photos. id have 4 - 6 batteries for my em5 when i got it to do the same task. lol :)
 
So knowing the range of "D" glass that out there for so little money, I'm cool as long as I know it's glass I'm satisfied with. And I'm getting that impression very strongly lately!

-Ray

Yeah - I don't shoot professionally so D glass works for me just fine too in the auto-focus department....
Speaking of which, my local brick n' mortar store had the 35mm ƒ2.0 D for $199 USD.....

Might hafta' swing over there tomorrow.....:eek:
 
@Ray's comment about battery life.

With respect to battery life, most mirror less have two counts against them. It's a smaller camera and live view or an evf uses more power than a dslr would. If the companies care to tackle the issue, it can be done, it's mostly laziness. Nikon V1 got it right. It used the battery from the D7000.
 
Though 1400 really is absurd, even my trusty Canon 5DII had 'ridiculous' battery life - even with extensive shooting, two batteries and one recharge each was generally enough for a 2 week trip...
 
Though 1400 really is absurd, even my trusty Canon 5DII had 'ridiculous' battery life - even with extensive shooting, two batteries and one recharge each was generally enough for a 2 week trip...

I think 500 should be the bare minimum for any camera and 1000 should be considered good.
 
I think 500 should be the bare minimum for any camera and 1000 should be considered good.

I'm not sure how we can come up with "should be the bare minimum". I'd sure LIKE it if all of my cameras got 500 shots or more per charge. And I suspect some of them sometimes get pretty close to that. But I think the Df is the first one I've shot with that I'd feel comfortable really being able to COUNT on it. I rarely shoot more than about 300 frames per day, and that's a BIG day - I'm usually well below that. And on those days I usually have to replace a battery once and with some cameras I've had to get to a third. I WISH a bare minimum of 500 was a reality, but clearly it's more challenging than that. I guess the whole live view thing takes a LOT more juice than moving a mirror around but almost never having to project an image on an electronic screen (of whatever size). The battery in the Df is no larger than batteries for the Nikon A or EM1 or GX7 or any of the Fuji APS cameras. So I don't think it has greater capacity, but DSLRs just seem to use less juice to do their jobs.

So I don't know if there's a "should" here, just an is and isn't. It may just be an inherent downside of mirrorless cameras... I can live it with it personally - changing a battery once or occasionally twice a day is really only a minor inconvenience. It's just really nice not to have to think about it for a change.

-Ray
 
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