Mirrorless cameras? Not there yet.

A Grandma, a photo by ggyy@mitbbs on Flickr. Taken with Panasonic DMC G3 with Nikon Nikkor 105mm f/2.5 lens.

I owned a Panasonic G3 briefly. At that time, I was looking for a camera that can take good videos. I had a Panasonic LX3 and a Nikon D700. The D700 does not do video and LX3's video file size is huge (though the image quality of the video is not too bad). After some research, I bought the G3, but I was not satisfied with the IQ of either the photos or the videos. The 14-42mm lens is quite decent (the camera does a lot of automatic corrections to remove CA and distortion), but the dynamic range of the sensor is poor (as compared to DSLR), I could only get good results during a bright day, but the scene cannot be too contrasty. If you think about it, there are not many situations where it will work well.

When I bought it, the G3 was quite expensive. With the lens, it's almost as expensive as or more expensive than a Nikon D5100 body (I don't remember the exact prices). I had a 18-70mm lens, and  other Nikon full frame lenses. After some further research, I decided to give D5100 a try. In short, I liked the D5100 much more than the G3. I then sold my G3. That was my first encounter of the mirrorless camera.

There are a lot to like about D5100, the focus speed (for shooting photos), image quality, the high-resolution swirl screen, the battery life, and the fact that I already had many Nikon lenses and didn't have to invest another set of lenses (I did buy a 70-300mm VR with the D5100). The reason that I did not choose D5100 the first time was because I read that the focus speed during video shooting is slow and D5100 does not track moving subject very well. These are true, but the G3 is not much better. I had realized that refocusing during video is not a good idea. The focus will go back and force (that is how contrast-detection autofocus works). Many say GH2 is very good, but it's too pricey. Besides, I need a good camera that shoots videos not a video camera that takes pictures. D5100 with 18-70mm is bigger and heavier than G3 with a 14-42mm. But when I cannot put either one in a pocket, does it matter? D5100 feels much more comfortable in my hand. One thing I really like about D5100 is the video file size. The file size is roughly 1MB per second. So a minute of video is about 60MB. I haven't seen much discussion of this point, but that to me is an ideal file size.

There are a few things that the mirrorless cameras do better than a DSLR. One of them is focusing manual focus lenses. It allows very precise focus, the above photo was taken with the G3 and a Nikkor 105mm f/2.5 manual focus lens. But it was hard to stabilize the camera due to the higher pixel counts (effectively higher magnification factor). I don't quite remember, but I might have put the camera on a table when taking the above picture.

Another tempting idea is that the Olympus mirrorless cameras have shake reduction build into the camera body which supposedly will help any lens mounted on them. I have recently bought a Olympus E-PL1, but the same limitations (noise level, dynamic range, lens choice, etc.) of the G3 still apply (but E-PL1 is not as expensive). If all I want to do is using manual focus lenses, probably, a full frame mirrorless camera (with shake reduction) will be the best choice. But that will not happen anytime soon.

With the introduction of Nikon V1 and the FT1 adaptor. at least I don't have to worry too much about lens choice. It is also tempting to think that we can use mirrorless camera as a way to increase "reach". I read that some people use a V1 with a 70-300mm VR lens for birding. It's tempting, but I have my doubt. I will wait for V1 to drop price or for V2 to come out.