Mirrorless fast focus / fast shutter ~ a review and comments wanted

[Ozzie_Traveller]

G'day all

On one of the US photo forums I chat with, there is (maybe yet again) some very active discussion about mirrorless cameras and their perceived poor focus / shutter response times in relation to conventional dSLRs. I am very happy with the performance of the Panny FZ camera and am going to post these tomorrow .... but I thought that I'd get your 2-bob's worth first.
ie: whatcha reckon - is it good enough? or does it still need substantial improvement to reach dSLR performance levels?

This morning on my pre-brekky walk down and around the lake & boat ramp area, I didn't get much pelican activity but there were plenty of seagulls flying around and overhead. Here's a bunch of 9 consecutive images shot at 7fps on the Panny FZ-2500
exif- Panny FZ-2500; "S"-mode @ 1/2000s x F9 to F11; EV -0.3; ISO-400; lens at 250mm FF equiv

One is definitely soft, but the other 8 are beaut and sharp, with sparkles in the eye clearly evident in multiple images. Images have been cropped to concentrate on the bird, then dropped to 960px for posting. Otherwise, the images are sooc JPGs

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6- this one is a tad soft ...


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9-


As always, feedback welcome
Phil

[HansE]

I have more trouble with learning how to use all this technology. The new Canon R about to hit the stores shoots 20 fps and has a image size of over 40 mpixels together with very fast focussing lenses. No doubt people will be moaning about it in a few years time.

[Isac]

It does a good job Phil. A little under exposed for me and needs some PP to lift those shadows, but nice and clear. The image I decided to play with is only 20.4kb. Do you need them that small for any reason? Also, why do you use 960px and not 1024px? Interested to get your response.

About the mirrorless cameras: I'm not convinced YET and while I'm super happy with my Canon 7Dii - at my age I don't think I'll be changing. Too much gear to get rid of just to take photos, but I know there are a lot of converts. I think both types have pros and cons.

[Grumpy John]

First off Phil, I'd be happy with any of those images sharpness wise. I do agree with Isac that they need a shadow lift, easy enough to do in PP. I remember reading somewhere that when taking photo's of BIF against a bright to set your EV to +1, the sky may be blown out slightly but you'll eliminate/reduce the shadows under the wings.

Regarding mirrorless Vs. DSLR - when my 7D was stolen out of my car I considered going mirrorless, I also considered a top of the line bridge camera. In the end I went for a 7D MkII, I'm getting too old to learn a new camera and I have too much invested in lenses to change now.

[Ozzie_Traveller]

It does a good job Phil. A little under exposed for me and needs some PP to lift those shadows, but nice and clear. The image I decided to play with is only 20.4kb. Do you need them that small for any reason? Also, why do you use 960px and not 1024px? Interested to get your response.....

G'day mate

As you know from elsewhere, another forum has issues with 1024 - it can only accept up to 1000px @ 250kb ~ so that is one issue
960px just happened to be the auto-crop size I clicked on that time

Another issue is the perennial issue of 'right-click & copy' from the internet, and while I don't reckon on my images being so crash-hot that they will be pinched, it is sometimes amazing to find others pinching an image from somewhere just to illustrate whatever it is they are wanting a pic for. So with today's search engines being able to search and grab an image without too much trouble, I just downsize them so that they are still viewable but not remain of printable quality

Phil

[Isac]

Are you referring to the Pommie forum? They allow up to BUT NEVER over 1024px and up to 250kb, also NEVER over. What do you use to resize?

I understand the issue with lowlifes using images from the internet but in saying that, if anyone wants to use my images for any reason, I consider it a compliment so they can go for it - but that's only me and I do watermark them as advertising and to make it a bit more difficult for the culprits. It's pretty hard to stop it nowadays with all the technology available. I do use internet images for various reasons but they ALWAYS come from Freebie sites like the ones I've listed on my website.

[K1W1]

Where those 1" sensor bridge cameras fall down imo is not so much the focussing but the micro detail. Looking at these photos the detail in the feathers is just not there compared to a FF or APS-C camera with a a good lens regardless of whether it is mirrorless or not. It's horses for courses obviously the 480mm equiv lens on the TZ-2500 allows users to get much closer at way lower cost and weight than an equivalent lens on an ILC would cost and weigh. If the user is happy with the images that is really all that matters as far as I am concerned.

[Ozzie_Traveller]

G'day mate

yes I agree 100% .... whomever it is - if you're happy with what you get, then stick with it and enjoy things
and also 'yes' - agreed and going back to film days - the larger the neg / sensor size, the better the fine detail resolved with the final image

Years ago it was "35mm vs 2-1/4" sq or 645 format, and for the wedding pros, the 645 / 2-1/4" won out as those negs could produce a 20" x 30" pic for the bride's mother easier / sharper than a 35mm neg could do (bride mothers can be somewhat demanding!)

Phil