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

So after nearly 100 posts, is the answer to the question "no"? :)

Yeah, you got it. But it took about 80 to get there. At 75 or so I was preparing to buy the Df, the thread kind of went quiet for a while while I changed my mind.

I think this particular exercise was actually pretty useful - to me at least. Full frame was the final frontier, the ultimate quality. Would the tradeoffs be too much? At first I thought not. But over time, as it all sunk in, I realized that the way I was willing to deal with full frame (smaller, slower lenses), the benefits are actually pretty limited. So, as much as I liked the Df in a lot of ways, and as much as I loved the RX1 for the year or so I had one, I've come to realize that I'm gonna do just as well with APS and/or m43 with smaller bodies and faster lenses.

It all seems pretty obvious in retrospect. But, as usual, I couldn't fully internalize the tradeoffs without a lot of actual use. Numbers only sink in so far.

So how many posts did it take you to figure out how to shoot the Trevi Fountain again? :D :D :D :D

-Ray
 
I believe the you are correct seeing as Ray is posting on the Fuji forum about his X-T1 and collection of lenses that arrived on Monday. I guess we should close this thread now ;)

Works for me. I reached my conclusion many posts ago and said that I was going with the XT1. Since then, I've answered questions, but my time with the Df is over...

-Ray
 
Is it possible to evolve backwards?

Clearly possible to evolve in a circle. It doesn't feel like backwards but it does feel like coming full circle. Hopefully I won't have to go around that circle again. The sensors will continue to get better and features will continue to improve, but I don't think the basic tradeoffs are gonna change over time. And to the extent they do, they probably improve more for smaller format cameras as the sensors get to the point where any advantage full frame has probably just won't matter any more. To many of us, it clearly already doesn't...

And, don't get me wrong. If they figure out how to make full frame lenses as small as APS at the same apertures, I'll probably reconsider. But I don't think that law of physics is likely to be repealed!

-Ray
 
Maybe the laws of physics will "evolve." :D

Ironically, I think I might jump right back into m43 -- again. m43 is like a woman that I've been wanting to divorce, but then find myself coming back to her. Figuratively speaking ONLY!
 
So after nearly 100 posts, is the answer to the question "no"? :)

These things take time, at least Internet time ;)

Contrary to Ray, I still have and love my Df. And ironically recently used a Fuji X-M1 for about 2 weeks and ended up not being happy with the RAW files. There was something to them that I liked (a spatiality?) and B&W conversions were sweet, but there was something off about them that I cannot describe but could not get over. Of course, the X-M1 is at the low end of the spectrum, but it has the same sensor and the investment was minimal.

After many years with LCDs and EVFs (since my Canon 5D days) the Df OVF is pure joy to use, and the camera is so responsive (no lag at all). The files are a dream to work with and B&W conversions are amazingly fantastic - rich and pliable allowing a ton of flexibility in B&W processing approaches (high contrast, matter, etc). And I just like using the camera. That said, the DoF can be hard to manage at times. But then again, I partly purchased it for its DoF control at the "shallow" end of the spectrum, and there it delivers.

I too worry about dust, but I rarely change lenses and I'm careful when I do.
 
Maybe the laws of physics will "evolve." :D

Ironically, I think I might jump right back into m43 -- again. m43 is like a woman that I've been wanting to divorce, but then find myself coming back to her. Figuratively speaking ONLY!

I'm still on my third "fling" with M43. If it does not last this time then I'm gone forever. But since I was able to take pictures in heavy rain a few weeks ago with the E-M1 (giddy after months of drought) it definitely has a purpose in my collection. And so far the PRO lenses seem to be fantastic, living up to the Olympus reputation in lens design.
 
These things take time, at least Internet time ;)

Contrary to Ray, I still have and love my Df. And ironically recently used a Fuji X-M1 for about 2 weeks and ended up not being happy with the RAW files. There was something to them that I liked (a spatiality?) and B&W conversions were sweet, but there was something off about them that I cannot describe but could not get over. Of course, the X-M1 is at the low end of the spectrum, but it has the same sensor and the investment was minimal.

After many years with LCDs and EVFs (since my Canon 5D days) the Df OVF is pure joy to use, and the camera is so responsive (no lag at all). The files are a dream to work with and B&W conversions are amazingly fantastic - rich and pliable allowing a ton of flexibility in B&W processing approaches (high contrast, matter, etc). And I just like using the camera. That said, the DoF can be hard to manage at times. But then again, I partly purchased it for its DoF control at the "shallow" end of the spectrum, and there it delivers.

I too worry about dust, but I rarely change lenses and I'm careful when I do.
Internet time seems to correspond pretty well to actual time, but short bursts of lots of posts are sort of unpredictable. I don't disagree with a single one of your comments about the Df - I found all of the same things. But implicit in almost all of them is a tradeoff of one kind of another, and we just came down on different sides of where the balance fell. I love the files the Df puts out, the responsiveness is fantastic, But if you're going for the shallow end of the DOF scale, I assume you're going for some pretty fast glass, which is where the benefit really comes into play, both in terms of shallow DOF and low light capability. And if you're good with those lenses, more power to you - that's where those cameras fully come into their own (that, and shooting action with it's great tracking AF). And if the camera wasn't quite too big for me with small lenses, with some of the larger primes and any of the zooms, it was. And I love the OVF too, but missed the other parts of a mirrorless live view system more than I loved that. I'm really liking the EVF of the XT1 too, as I do the one in the EM1.

Just different conclusions, but no disagreement over the basic strengths...

Regarding m43, I've contemplated getting out of it, and I've de and re-emphasized it to varying degrees a few times, but I've never been without at least a skeletal m43 system since I first got back into shooting four years ago. I've had several lenses and two bodies and one body with just a few lenses (as currently). I could see getting to the place with Fuji where I have enough lenses to form a really good all-Fuji travel kit. But for long lenses and fast portrait lenses and fast zooms, the size advantage is just too compelling. Unless Fuji comes up with something like the 75mm that's not a whole lot bigger and the 12-40 and 35-100 that aren't a whole lot bigger, I have trouble seeing myself getting completely out of m43. I might even dive into it more deeply except that, regardless of how good the sensors get, I just like 3:2 as a native aspect ratio a lot more than 4:3. So, reasons to not abandon it and to not embrace it too fully either...

-Ray
 
I have never been without at least one m4/3 camera in my gear drawer too. And now I have two, because my old man decided to no longer use the GH2 that he had "borrowed" for the last two years! Now that I'm handling the GH2 again, I gotta say that it is one cool little camera, with very nice controls!
 
Hi Ray, I hope I did not sound disagreeable! I absolutely appreciate your thoughtful comments. As I read this thread the Df was on my mind so I thought I'd chime in.

Internet time seems to correspond pretty well to actual time, but short bursts of lots of posts are sort of unpredictable. I don't disagree with a single one of your comments about the Df - I found all of the same things. But implicit in almost all of them is a tradeoff of one kind of another, and we just came down on different sides of where the balance fell. I love the files the Df puts out, the responsiveness is fantastic, But if you're going for the shallow end of the DOF scale, I assume you're going for some pretty fast glass, which is where the benefit really comes into play, both in terms of shallow DOF and low light capability. And if you're good with those lenses, more power to you - that's where those cameras fully come into their own (that, and shooting action with it's great tracking AF). And if the camera wasn't quite too big for me with small lenses, with some of the larger primes and any of the zooms, it was. And I love the OVF too, but missed the other parts of a mirrorless live view system more than I loved that. I'm really liking the EVF of the XT1 too, as I do the one in the EM1.

Just different conclusions, but no disagreement over the basic strengths...

Regarding m43, I've contemplated getting out of it, and I've de and re-emphasized it to varying degrees a few times, but I've never been without at least a skeletal m43 system since I first got back into shooting four years ago. I've had several lenses and two bodies and one body with just a few lenses (as currently). I could see getting to the place with Fuji where I have enough lenses to form a really good all-Fuji travel kit. But for long lenses and fast portrait lenses and fast zooms, the size advantage is just too compelling. Unless Fuji comes up with something like the 75mm that's not a whole lot bigger and the 12-40 and 35-100 that aren't a whole lot bigger, I have trouble seeing myself getting completely out of m43. I might even dive into it more deeply except that, regardless of how good the sensors get, I just like 3:2 as a native aspect ratio a lot more than 4:3. So, reasons to not abandon it and to not embrace it too fully either...

-Ray
 
Hi Ray, I hope I did not sound disagreeable! I absolutely appreciate your thoughtful comments. As I read this thread the Df was on my mind so I thought I'd chime in.
Oh no, not in the least! Just another good example if how two people can largely view the features of a given camera (or probably anything else), yet still come to very different conclusions about how well the sum of the parts work for them. Nothing disagreeable at all.

-Ray
 
Ray, I hope you can share some landscape shots with lots of green and foliage with the X-T1 with us. I`m interested to see whether the smearing and watercoloring effects of the X-trans sensor is still an issue. The watercoloring, AF, shutter lag and EVF refresh rate issues made me abandon the Fujis. Shutter lag, AF, and EVF refresh rate issues might have been addressed reasonably well by now, but the watercoloring of foliage would still be beyond my level of tolerance considering the alternatives. (my benchmark landscape cameras are the Merrills)
 
2. Second, DSLR's require some degree of MAINTENANCE! I did not experience the need to fine tune focus on the lenses I used during this trial run and focus problems do not seem to be a particular issue with the Df (unlike the D800, for example), but this is something I assume I'd run into with a purely PDAF focus system at some point and it's not something I'd particularly want to deal with. -Ray

How does this compare with mirrorless PDAF systems?
 
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