I mentioned in an earlier post, that while recuperating from foot surgery I was spending quite a bit of time on YouTube. One of the things I was interested in were mirrorless cameras. As a Canon shooter I had high hopes for their release of a mirrorless. Reviews were not good, and kept bringing me back to Sony, Fuji, and Panasonic. As it seems Canon and Nikon topped the DSLR world, the others were for mirrorless. But much of what I read and saw was puzzling me. Photographers were not simply adding mirrorless, but switching. I mean completely! As in selling all their DSLR equipment and going totally mirrorless. I just can’t wrap my head around this.
About 20 years ago I lost all my photography equipment in a car fire. Everyone was fine, but the vehicle all its contents, including my equipment, were a total loss. It took me a lot of years to build it back up again; even to start the process, but that is for another post. I don’t know if this is part of why I feel the way I do. But I just couldn’t make a total switch.
Sean Tucker, a YouTube photographer, talks about the day he took all his equipment to be apprised with plans to move over to mirrorless. Now, looking at the cost of the system he was moving too, you are looking at a pretty penny. If I look back at the me before the fire, I would get this, one or the other. I guess I am in a different place now. I have a Canon 5D Mark III. I have worked through different models of Canon cameras to get here, and I just love this one. I have no desire to move up, as to me it is just more bells and whistles. I want my camera to take beautiful pictures, it doesn’t have to have WiFi, a touch screen, or any other fancy gizmos.
If you go on YouTube and do a search on switching to mirrorless, you will see many ( I have linked some below). People who actually sold all their gear and switched! Then I ran across the Panasonic LUMIX line. I thought about why I wanted mirrorless. It wasn’t in order to switch, but to enhance. Lately I have found myself opting to leave my camera behind. It is just too much of a hassle to take it. Too heavy, too cumbersome, and mostly too obvious. I am not replacing my workhorse. I am enabling myself to keep shooting. A mirrorless can literally fit in your coat pocket.
As someone who doesn’t care about all the latest bells and whistles, I looked for the best older model mirrorless systems. When B&H had a half off sale on the LUMIX GX85, with 12-32mm and 45-150mm lenses, battery, and included a memory card, camera bag, and UV filter, it was a no-brainer. I can now have the best of both worlds.
Now learning a whole new system, I am struggling a little. The LUMIX has some fantastic functions I hadn’t even heard about. Post focus and 4K photography to name a few. But for me, the ability to have it with me wherever I go, is well worth the time spent learning all it can do.
Some YouTube videos by photographers switching to mirrorless –
Sean Tucker moved from Canon and Fujifilm to Sony https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wI656MIUCsg&feature=youtu.be
Jason Lanier switched from Nikon to Sony https://youtu.be/7wM_5nROeaw
James Popsys switched from Nikon to Panasonic LUMIX https://youtu.be/pp3rlNzHGyw
Ian Smissen switched to Panasonic from Pentax https://youtu.be/X45GdX_tkyU
Christophe Van Biesen switching to Fujifilm from Canon https://youtu.be/wHlCHNFp2fo
*Note – While recuperating from surgery, I am using my Galaxy 6 cellphone for posts.