Dave Stevenson
Okay, Evil (micro four-thirds) cameras aren’t going to replace DSLRs, but they’re a hell of a lot more convenient for everyday use.
Last week, someone asked what I thought the next big thing in the world of cameras was. Since thinking about cameras forms quite a chunk of my income, I was disturbed to find my mind more or less blank. HD video? Check. Dual-core image processing? Check. Sky-scraping ISO abilities? Check. The only thing missing from modern DSLRs is a tea-making facility and I hope quite sincerely that someone almost has that nailed.
In fact, the next big thing for high-end consumer photography might not be the DSLR at all. For a couple of years now, Olympus has been trying to sell us its micro four-thirds cameras, which despite surface-level similarities to DSLRs, are an entirely new breed. You still get a bigger image sensor than the thumbnail-sized chips you get on compact cameras, with the attendant bump in image quality, and you can still remove the lens from the front of the camera and replace it with something wider, faster or longer depending how the mood takes you. However, instead of needing a mirror box and a pentaprism viewfinder, the sensor sits permanently exposed, very close to the back of the lens, and you frame shots using a permanent live view mode.
The absence of a DSLR-style mirror system is, in very broad terms, a Good Thing. Mirror boxes and viewfinders are bulky, heavy and, because of how fast they move to expose and then hide the sensor, coupled with the millimetre-tight tolerances to keep everything working properly, highly fragile. Fewer moving parts? Sold. The only drawback I can come up with is the ludicrous acronym we’re being asked to adopt: ‘Evil’, which stands for electronic viewfinder, interchangeable lenses.
Still, if you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em. The advantages continue for consumers. Using an LCD on the back of a camera to frame a shot is simply more intuitive for anyone used to compact cameras, to say nothing of the fact that many entry-level DSLRs have tiny viewfinders anyway.
I won’t be sticking my DSLR on eBay just yet, but some are. Charlie Sorrel, who works for Wired magazine in the US, used Panasonic’s GF1 micro four-thirds camera and was so smitten by the pocket-sized beauty that he wrote an enthusiastic blog post about how he liked it so much he’d all but stopped using his Nikon D700. He was abruptly met by a tidal wave of disagreement, some of which was so bilious that the writers must have found it hard to type through their tears of rage.
But I get his point. I used to take my DSLR everywhere with me: it sat at the bottom of my bag in pubs, at the beach, at friends’ houses. It sat there like an awful dead weight; because that’s what it was. Eventually, I stopped carrying it around unless I was going somewhere specifically to take pictures. You won’t need to worry about an Evil camera prompting a trip to the chiropractor, and you can take it everywhere.
Worse, the production of a DSLR completely changes the dynamic of any social gathering. The arrival of a compact camera is bad enough, but if you want to watch a conversation really die an awkward death, pull out a big camera. Talking grinds to a halt as everyone turns to see what the photographer is taking a picture of. ‘Oh,’ you’ll say. ‘I was just trying to catch everyone in… y’know, full swing.’ Then there’ll be an awful silence while everyone watches you put down the camera.
So that’s that. Chuck your DSLR in the bin, tear up your photographic wish list, and embrace the future of high-end consumer photography with open arms.
However, it isn’t going to be that simple, obviously. Micro four thirds might have all kinds of tempting benefits, but without the presence of Nikon, Canon or Sony in the market, I’d predict it isn’t going to find widespread popularity.
Moreover, the big three DSLR manufacturers are doubtless in two minds as to whether to attack the Evil market at all. Micro four thirds cameras are expensive little things, and with the DSLR market bottoming out with entry-level bodies available for little more than £300, it would be surprising if Nikon decided to cannibalise sales of its D3000 by introducing a bridge camera that would sit uncomfortably beside its existing bridge cameras, which already look a little awkward between its compacts and DSLRs. This is all to say nothing of the rather messy situation that would occur if Nikon and Canon needed to supplement their legendary range of lenses with a lens format that was incompatible with anything they’d ever made before.
The price hike would sit more easily if Evil cameras could conquer arguably the most important aspect of photography – image quality. But saying they have larger sensors than compact cameras doesn’t give you enough information. The sensor in an entry-level DSLR is around 1.6 times bigger than that in a four-thirds camera, yet Evil cameras offer around a 12-megapixel resolution, just like most DSLRs. That inevitably means more noise at higher ISOs.
My suspicion though, is that most people don’t care. A huge number of people buying their first DSLR couldn’t give a hoot about the vagaries of lens mounts. And, although many, like me, will eventually choose to care, an even bigger number will be perfectly happy with a lens bag that includes something wide, something long and something fast. And while you can almost always buy a camera better than yours when it comes to ISO performance, most will be happy with a decent flash and good performance in fair-to-middling overcast weather.
It’s not that the DSLR is on its way out by any means. You couldn’t prise mine away, for instance. But for a lot of people, having a choice of a hundred lenses and the ability to take pictures in the dark is overkill. Perhaps we should call Evil cameras almost-DSLRs. Although I’ll be more interested when they start making tea.
