this post was submitted on 10 Sep 2026
95 points (94.4% liked)
Technology
87938 readers
2829 users here now
This is a most excellent place for technology news and articles.
Our Rules
- Follow the lemmy.world rules.
- Only tech related news or articles.
- Be excellent to each other!
- Mod approved content bots can post up to 10 articles per day.
- Threads asking for personal tech support may be deleted.
- Politics threads may be removed.
- No memes allowed as posts, OK to post as comments.
- Only approved bots from the list below, this includes using AI responses and summaries. To ask if your bot can be added please contact a mod.
- Check for duplicates before posting, duplicates may be removed
- Accounts 7 days and younger will have their posts automatically removed.
Approved Bots
founded 3 years ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
What? Why didn't they do that a decade ago? DSLR is freaking useless with a digital camera. But apparently other brands still have them too? But why use DSLR when you can get a more exact image representation from the sensor? Seems like it's based more on tradition than actual usefulness.
Of course if you make an old retro film camera, the system is still useful. But my guess is that is a very small niche market. It's inferior in every way and more expensive and time consuming.
I thought the same until I tried to take some pictures of some dragonflies in flight like I used to on my old DSLR. It's pretty much impossible with how slow the display for the viewfinder is. Was relatively easy with a DSLR.
You are probably comparing a high end DSLR with a low end digital camera.
There is no reason why there should be noticeable latency on a high end digital camera. In fact the response time can be even shorter than with DSLR that has a mechanical mirror.
I've always wondered why people were so adamant about SLRs even in the digital age. Before mirrorless cameras came out, DSLRs were the only digital option with swappable lenses but I've stopped keeping track. Mirrorless cameras have swappable lenses too right? I'm assuming many of them can attach the same ones used with DSLRs.
There are two types of autofocus systems that cameras use, phase detect and contrast detect. Contrast detect is what all point and shoot style cameras (and early mirrorless interchangeable lens cameras) used where they identified contrast of vertical edges and used that to determine if an image was in focus, this is a slow process as the camera needs to figure out what direction to move the focus and check the image at multiple focus positions to compare until the camera determined it was in focus.
DSLRs have a separate sensor up near the viewfinder that does phase detect autofocus, this is different in that it can determine how far the lens is from being in focus and go directly there which makes it significantly faster which was crucial in many professional applications.
Eventually sensor manufacturers figured out how to integrate a version of phase detect into the pixels of the sensor itself. While these didn't perform as accurately as the separate phase detect arrays in DSLRs, they had an extra trick where they were able to create a hybrid autofocus system that used the phase detect array to get close and then contrast detect to get accurate focus. It was only once this was implemented on mirrorless cameras that the advantages of SLR disappeared.
Yes they can. the technical difference is only in how the viewfinder works.
For a long time mirrorless cameras had terrible battery life and no phase detect autofocus.
A DSLR doesn't need to keep a screen powered all the time you're looking through it. Improvements in the battery life of MILCs has made that non-issue for most people though.
Ah, of course! The battery life makes total sense. I'll have to research what phase detect autofocus means, but thanks for answering.
Yeah, as long as the camera and lens have same lens mount.
Edit: or an adapter I guess.
Thanks, that's good to know. I wanna get back into photography since the mirrorlesses are so compact now, but being able to keep my lenses was one thing I needed to know about before selling my old DSLR.
Which DSLR do you have?
It's ancient. I have an Eos Kiss X4. I think it's called Rebel ok n North America.
I assume you may need to get an adapter to keep using old lenses after getting new camera. Cannon has 3 different lens mount types from what I know.
The mirrorless lineup from manufacturers has a different mount than their dslrs.
DLSRs are a budget option usually compared to a Mirrorless Camera (what I assume you mean when you say digital)
No SLR is the ones with the mirror. DSLR are digital with a mirror. And they are definitely not "budget", they are the high end. Except today on a high end digital camera the mirror is not necessary as you can use the sensor for the viewfinder instead.