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History of Digital Camera Technology

 

Before the DSLR and even before film SLRs were retrofitted with digital components - Digital sensors started out in "compact" & "mirrorless" form. These cameras were initially consumer toys; playful with deign, but crippled by emerging technology. Tiny, low-resolution sensors. Low capacity, sluggish memory. Slow and simple processing. Poor autofocus and screens. Basic and poorly laid out menus systems. All this made for a rather unpleasant user experience. Certainly nothing that would inspire professionals.

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DSC07025s.jpg

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First purpose build DSLR - Nikon D1 (1999)

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Mechanical

Adding a ​shutter, mirror and prism of an SLR to the rapidly improving digital technology was a stroke of genius that made for a much nicer shooting experience (even if manufacturers rather stumbled into it). Using familiar controls and the same lenses were important aspects for professionals, but the real success was the way the mechanism masked the technologies rough edges. It added a sense of elegance that digital would not possess on its own for quite some time.

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This trend started very naturally by initially bolting digital components to existing film SLRs. Beginning with Kodak's DCS 100 in 1991, which used a Nikon F3 (without permission from Nikon). Purpose built DSLRs started with the Nikon D1 in late 1999 and for the next decade their image quality improved massively. Their popularity soared as we saw noticeable increases in image quality, body and lens design. Full frame sensors emerged quite early, with the Canon 1Ds in 2002, but ramped up in popularity with the 5D in 2005. Nikon brought impressive noise performance with their D3 in 2007 and a year later the D3X doubled the resolution to 24mp. Since then DSLRs have been extremely slow to evolve however...

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Removing The Mirror

The Panasonic DMC-G1 was the first digital camera to drop the mirror in 2008. Mirrorless cameras brought smaller bodies and lenses, quieter operation, less mechanical movement and more room for things like sensor stabilization. Although the early implementations of their autofocus systems and electronic viewfinders (EVF) were a little rough, they wouldn't be for long.

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Electronic ViewFinder (EVF)

EVFs have allowed cameras to keep all the functionality from DSLRs while being smaller, but they also bring a host of additional features. Many of these things don't show up on a specification sheet, but can make a tangible benefit to your photography:

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  • Silent Shooting - Shoot electronically to make no noise at all, but still be able to see using the viewfinder

  • Live Exposure - No more guessing exposure or dynamic range. Shooting full manual is also much easier and faster

  • AF Sensors - Many more focus points over a much greater part of the frame for more accurate focus and better tracking

  • Eye-AF - The ability to lock focus and track the eyes of people (plus many animals)

  • No Chimping - Reviewing images is now unnecessary since exposure values are seen in real-time

  • Augmented Info - Viewfinder can show: histogram, levels, eye-AF, focus peaking, clipping etc.

  • True Focus DoF - Permanent DoF preview that shows the correct depth & unaffected by brightness

  • No DoF Limit - No limit to seeing shallow DoF (DSLRs usually limited to f/2.5 due to focus screen)

  • 100% Viewfinder - Large 100% viewfinders are no longer exclusive to the most expensive cameras

  • Crop Lenses - Show just like full frame (zoomed in and 100% coverage)

  • Focus Magnification - Makes manual lenses or checking focus, very fast and accurate

  • No Light Leaking - Viewfinder doesn't need to be covered during long exposures

  • Focus & Speed Unhindered in Live-View - No mirror switching modes and AF systems

  • Shooting Into Bright lights - It is no longer difficult to see, or dangerous to look into the sun

  • Image Review In Sunlight - When you struggle to see the rear screen in sunny conditions, just use the EVF

  • Viewfinder Colour - Showing the world with white balance adjusted colours (full spectrum game-changer)

  • See With Dark / Opaque Filters - Strong ND, IR or UV pass can still show a normal exposure in the viewfinder

  • In-Body Image Stabilization - Most DSLRs don't have IBIS, but if they did you wouldn't see the effects in the viewfinder

  • No Lens Calibration - With focal plane AF calibration for front/back focusing is no longer an issue

  • Adapt DSLR Lenses - Short flange distance means you can adapt to older lenses, sometimes with AF

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First professional mirrorless camera - Sony A9 (2017)

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Removing The Shutter

Removing a need for the physical shutter would prove a little more tricky however. Electronic shutters are the holy grail for digital photography, but it took the advent of stacked sensors to remove rolling shutter, banding and flash issues. First demonstrated with Sony's A9 in 2017, this technology has some huge benefits:

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  • Usably Silent - a gamechanger for weddings, sports, wildlife and more

  • Sheer Speed - faster burst, shutter and focusing speeds

  • Quality Video - drastically improved motion issues

  • Reduced Wear - minimized mechanical movement

  • Uninterrupted View - true zero-blackout, not just leaving the last image displayed

  • Subject Recognition - auto-focusing for cars, planes, eyes of people & animals etc.

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Rolling Shutter

For static subjects this is not an issue, but panning with moving subjects can distort objects that can ruin an image. Thus, with the electronic shutter, "rolling shutter" (or "scan speed") can be very important. Although it's something that is gradually getting better over time, many cameras are still too slow to reliably shoot fast moving subjects. Here are some sensor scan speeds from a few popular cameras that I could find around the internet (for stills photography, NOT video). Colour coded to help illustrate severity.

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Camera  |  Speed  |  ms 

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  • PhaseOne IQ4

  • Hasselblad X1D

  • Fuji GFX 50s

  • Fuji GFX 100

  • Sony A7R IV

  • Sony A7R II

  • Canon EOS R

  • Sony A7 III

  • Nikon Z7 / II

  • Nikon Z6 / II

  • Sony A6400

  • Sony A7S

  • Fuji X-T2

  • Sigma FP

  • Panasonic GH5

  • Sony A6300

  • Canon EOS R6

  • Fuji X-T3

  • Canon EOS R5

  • Olympus EM1III

  • Fuji X-T4

  • Panasonic GH6

  • Sony A7S III

  • Sony A9 /A9II

  • Canon R3

  • Sony A1

  • Nikon Z9

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  • Global Shutter

1

1/3

1/4

1/6

1/10

1/12

1/13

1/15

1/16

1/22

1/25

1/42

1/48

1/48

1/50

1/50

1/50

1/60

1/60

1/60

1/75

1/78

1/115

1/160

1/180

1/240

1/250

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ꝏ

1000

300

250

159

100

83

75

64

63

44

38

24

21

21

20

20

20

17

17

17

13

12

8.7

6

5.6

4.2

4

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0

- Don't

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​

​

- Terrible

​

​

- Poor

​

​

​

- Meh

​

​

​

​

​

- OK

​

​

​

- Good

​

- Great

​

- Stellar

​

​

- Perfect

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DSLRs Left In The Dust

The Sony A9 took the big camera manufacturers by surprise. Canon & Nikon took four years to develop their own stacked sensor professional mirrorless cameras, with the R3 and Z9 (respectively). These models are so much more advanced than DSLRs that this pretty much killed professional DSLR's in a single generation. To illustrate how much of a leap this was let's compare the main features from Nikon's latest flagship DSLR (D6 - 2020) to Sony's first flagship mirrorless camera (A9 - 2017), three years earlier:

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D6vsA9.png

Feature        | Nikon D6 | Sony A9 

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  • Price (USD)

  • Weight (g)

  • Resolution (mp)

  • Burst (max fps)

  • Buffer (# of RAW)

  • Shutter Lag* (ms)

  • Shutter Speed (max)

  • Startup Time (sec)

  • ViewFinder Blackout

  • AF Points

  • AF Coverage (%)

  • Eye AF

  • Battery Life

  • Silent Penalty**

  • DxO score: DR

  • DxO score: ISO

  • Lens Calibration***

  • IBIS (Stops)

  • Vertical Grip

  • LCD Screen

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6,999

1450

20

14

133

39

1/8,000

0.4

Yes

105

26

Partial

3600

Yes

12.3

2434

Yes

No (0)

Yes

Fixed

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3,499

673

24

20

241

20

1/32,000

0.6

No

994

93

Yes

650

No

13.3

3517

No

Yes (5)

Optional

Tilt

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NOTES: Better / Worse / Similar

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* Shutter Lag: A prefocus shutter lag time to state how responsive the camera is in its natural mode.

** Silent Penalty: Whether the camera slows down or loses functionality during silent shooting.

*** Lens Calibration: Whether lenses suffer from front/back focus issues, requiring calibration.

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The End

Like film cameras in the early 2000's, DSLRs will still function, be enjoyable to use and available on the second hand market for some time to come. However, it's increasingly clear that their commercial viability will soon be over. Mirrorless cameras simply offer more features in a more reliable package and for less money as time goes on. Sure some people will be disappointed that they can't go out and buy a brand new DSLR for a while, but eventually they will realise that they gained a lot more in the transition than they lost.

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