Recently , it was reported that Sony quietly discontinued all its SLRs . Not only did Sony delete all its A-mount cameras from the website, third-party retailers such as B&H now also list these cameras as “no longer available.”
In 2006, Sony entered the field of high-end cameras through the acquisition of Minolta’s camera division.
Subsequently, Sony inherited the alpha camera brand and the A mount system used by Minolta in the Japanese market. Starting from the a100, the Minolta SLR turned into a Sony SLR. After that, Sony continued to improve its product functions and finally became a Sony SLR in 2008. Became the world’s third largest manufacturer of digital SLR cameras.
However, in 2010, Sony began to officially launch the E-mount dedicated for mirrorless singles in the α series. After that, the E-mount system gradually expanded, and mirrorless singles gradually became a popular product, while SLR products were gradually marginalized by Sony .
In addition to Sony, Canon and Nikon have not yet launched new SLR models. Has the SLR era come to an end?
In the 1970s, digital single-lens reflex cameras that replaced traditional film cameras appeared. After decades of development, they successfully managed to overcome the initial doubts of professional photographers and became synonymous with “professionalism.” However, “professional” is no longer attractive nowadays. What allows young people to stop and spend time and money are all kinds of small and portable mirrorless cameras (micro-singles) and smartphones with several lenses and main camera functions.
In the era of social media, smart shooting and beauty are rampant, algorithms and AI can help you fill in all the tiny details.
Just turn on the “professional mode” to get a picture that is not inferior to SLR works. For the “amateur”, who would carry a tripod, fix the camera, and adjust various parameters only to take a picture when off work Where’s the sunset?
“Internal Worries” and “Foreign Troubles”
In 1975, the young Sassen had just joined the Kodak laboratory, and within a year he developed the first digital camera in human history.
“In the future, new digital technologies may greatly affect the way photos are produced in the future,” Sassen said in a report on “A Hand-held Electronic Still Camera and Its Replacement Device.
The fact is true. Digital cameras have overturned the past film imaging. In the following 40 years of development, the pixels have been continuously upgraded. After the explosion of four sub-pixels, with the advantages of simplicity and speed, digital cameras have successfully replaced film cameras. Became the mainstream of the photography market at the beginning of the century. Digital SLR cameras have become the “best choice” in the process of leading to professional photography by virtue of more advanced technology.
But no one can always dominate the mainstream.
In the past 2020, mirrorless cameras surpassed SLR in sales for the first time . According to data from the International Camera and Imaging Equipment Industry Association (CIPA), in China’s digital camera market, the sales volume of mirrorless cameras in October was 100,879 units, and the sales exceeded 100,000 units for the first time. 38% of sales of mirrorless cameras.
At the same time, the price difference between mirrorless cameras and SLR cameras has gradually emerged. Nowadays, the customer order price of mirrorless cameras can easily exceed 6,000 yuan, while the customer order price of SLR cameras can hardly exceed 4,000 yuan.
Specifically, the difference between SLR and mirrorless cameras is mainly in the viewfinder structure.
The SLR is an interchangeable lens camera with an optical viewfinder structure, with a mirror and a pentaprism inside the body; a mirrorless camera is a camera with an electronic viewfinder structure, and there is neither a mirror nor a pentaprism inside the body.
( Naijatechnews Note: Sony’s old-fashioned A-mount digital SLR camera is actually a DSLT, because Sony did not use a traditional mirror to reflect light onto the camera’s sensor. Instead, it used a special thin-film mirror that would enter the camera. The light is split so that part of it shines on the phase detection sensor, while the rest passes through the mirror and shines on the traditional image sensor. Sony calls this setting SLT, which stands for single-lens translucent and allows it to record video It uses real-time phase detection autofocus during live viewing, although in other respects it is still quite similar to traditional SLR cameras.)
In the past when the framing technology was immature, adding a mirror between the lens and the film or the sensor could better help the photographer in framing, but at the cost of a longer flange distance, which would result in a loss of imaging. But with the iterative and development of technology, after the mirrorless camera gets rid of the limitation of viewfinder, the shorter flange distance and more vertical angle of light make it more competitive in the camera market.
If mirrorless cameras, as the “internal worries” that impact SLRs, only started to emerge last year; then, smartphones, which are “foreign troubles” in the entire digital camera industry, have already launched an offensive against them .
▲ Mi 11 Ultra
In fact, although the imaging technology of digital cameras has improved day by day, the development of the industry has gone downhill. According to data from the International Camera and Imaging Equipment Industry Association (CIPA), global shipments of digital cameras reached a peak of 122 million units in 2010, and then began a continuous decline for many years .
Until 2009, entry-level SLRs were still a popular product in China’s digital camera consumer market. According to data from the Consumer Electronics Survey Office of the China Electronics Chamber of Commerce at the time, consumers’ attention to SLR cameras was 82%, an increase of 30% from the previous month.
A year later, the sales of digital cameras reached an unprecedented high, but then the release of the iPhone 4 made the fate of mobile photography and digital photography interlaced.
At that time, the iPhone 4’s rear iSight camera had only 5 million pixels, but the software interface and optimization algorithms became the key to its “fate change”. Both the user experience and the image quality have been significantly improved.
Since then, smartphones have carried algorithms and “invaded” the world of photography.
Algorithm “Invasion”
“Quick Shots” and “Smart Optimization” are the “big killers” of mobile photography.
In 1826, the first surviving photo in human history was born. A gray tin plate with a width of 20 cm and a height of 16.5 cm is almost invisible, let alone seeing any details.
▲ The first surviving photo in human history, “The Scenery Outside the Window”
This photo is called “Landscape Outside the Window” and was taken by the Frenchman Niepce. It used traditional daylight etching and took a full 8 hours of exposure before it was successfully shot. Afterwards, in order to improve the exposure imaging technology, Niepce and the stage designer Daguerre collaborated on research, and finally released Daguerre photography in 1839, and the history of human photography technology officially began.
In the following 50 years, although the time for exposure and imaging has been shortened, and photography techniques such as wet and dry photography have also appeared, the photography equipment is still very cumbersome: “The photographer must carry a shading tent and chemicals when going out to shoot. , Glass pieces, bulky brackets, and a pot of water. The complete set of equipment is usually a carriage.”
With the help of algorithms, mobile phone photography has greatly got rid of the above constraints. Not only is it lighter and portable, but the details of the picture are also clearer with the optimization of the algorithm.
Mobile photography actually uses the principle of “computational photography”, and the concept of “computational photography” first appeared in a 1994 paper. It recognizes that the in-camera synthetic HDR, panoramic photos, and simulated bokeh belong to the category of computational photography. However, the camera manufacturers at the time did not think this would be an opportunity in the future. Instead, mobile phone manufacturers gradually used “computational photography” in their mobile phone products.
For a small number of professionals, it is very important to cover more details and information when shooting; however, for most people who have no basis in photography, it is most convenient and easy to get a “looks” good photo. , Is far more important than rich information .
As products continue to be upgraded and iterated, the computing power of smartphone chips is getting stronger and stronger, and the functions of algorithms and AI in image processing are getting stronger and stronger. Nowadays, the photos optimized and adjusted by a series of algorithms have quietly surpassed many SLR photos, but the processing process behind them is quite complicated.
In order to enhance the overall image quality, some modules of machine learning algorithms are used in the image processing flow of mobile photography. These modules have replaced traditional algorithms to a certain extent in the continuous changes of mobile phones, making mobile phones more excellent in details, white balance, overall and partial contrast, etc.
Although the algorithmic interpretation in mobile photography is still limited, it is difficult to make “creative” optimization changes to photos, but the market positioning of mobile phones is for the more ordinary majority, and for the “most”, “good-looking” enough.
Beauty and the social age
There is no doubt that the “majority” heralds the future of the photography industry .
From ancient times to the present, people have had a high enthusiasm for preserving the beautiful moments, and photography technology has been continuously satisfying people’s ever-changing needs since its birth.
From the “cold cotton wet plate method” to the film camera, from the film camera to the digital camera and then to the “computational photography”, it is no longer necessary to carry a whole carriage and equipment to take pictures. There are more and more people who can come into contact with photography. Gradually from the niche to the masses. Once the imaging technology continues to improve and the shooting process continues to be simplified, new technological products endow photos with more characteristics and also stimulate people’s demand for updates.
In 2008, the iPhone3G launched by Apple began to support third-party applications in the App Store.
Instagram appeared in 2010. This application that combines “instant” and “telegram” allows ordinary players to have a mobile platform for sharing photos taken with their mobile phones. The founder of Instagram claimed to be inspired by instant imaging cameras, and believed that photo sharing between people “is like sending a telegram message over a wire.”
Subsequently, the popularization of 4G accelerated the speed of various information exchanges. The transmission of visual content such as pictures and videos became cheaper and the desire for communication and sharing expanded infinitely among people.
The age of social media has come, and it is accompanied by a wide range of beauty, Meitu cameras, live broadcast, and short video applications. Everyone began to hold up their mobile phones and record and express with mobile phone images. “Fast,” “instant”, and “easy to share” have become the “highest” needs of most people for photography in the social era.
Before eating, take photos and post to Moments. When choosing tourist attractions, consider whether the photos look good or not. It doesn’t matter whether the restaurant is good or not, just “good-looking”… The development of photography technology continues to stimulate people’s visual nerves, and the exquisiteness of images becomes social A new coordinate for evaluating the value of things in the era .
SLR “fate soon”?
In the “mirror world” that is keen to share, the SLR seems to have disappeared in more and more scenes, but in fact, every picture you share has proof of its existence.
The ability of mobile phones to achieve shooting functions initially benefited from the CMOS image sensor of the digital camera.
At the end of the 1990s, CMOS replaced the previous CCD and became the dominant image sensor era, which made “chip cameras” possible. Since then, the trend of miniaturization of cameras has gradually emerged.
In 2000, Sharp launched the world’s first mobile phone that can take pictures. In the following two decades, more and more mobile phone manufacturers have begun to focus on the upgrade of mobile phone photography functions. In terms of hardware, CMOS and cameras have become manufacturers’ key publicity. Selling point. As the key to imaging of digital cameras such as SLRs, CMOS has long been implanted in mobile phones. As the pixels of mobile phone cameras increase, CMOS is also gradually upgraded in the mobile phone photography industry.
Any technological iteration is based on each early product. The product form of SLR may be marginalized, but as a part of the technological process, it will not disappear .
What’s more, you can still see that some people regard SLRs as treasures. They prefer the handheld feel of SLRs. They prefer the unknowns and surprises when shooting from the viewfinder and pressing the shutter. This joy and social media have gained a few praises. Compared with the satisfaction, it is not inferior.
For more such interesting article like this, app/softwares, games, Gadget Reviews, comparisons, troubleshooting guides, listicles, and tips & tricks related to Windows, Android, iOS, and macOS, follow us on Google News, Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, YouTube, and Pinterest.