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You don’t need another camera
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You don’t need another camera

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    Opinion pieces by Sean McCormack.     Opinion pieces by Sean McCormack.

Credit: Sean McCormack

Yes. You heard me. Your equipment purchase needs to be stopped. The great revolution waiting to happen in cameras has happened. Mirrorless are now mainstream and DSLRs are quietly fading into history. Your old lenses will continue to work fine with adapters until they become beyond repair (and that’s why they’re getting cheaper as new mounts come into play).

If you’ve purchased a camera from any of the major brands in the last few years, you’ve got decent megapixels. You have low enough noise. You can bracket, you can use flash, and your files are large enough. You don’t need the next generation. The revolution is over and from now on it will be a slow evolution and not much that will make a difference in your day to day photography.

My last three main cameras Fujifilm X-T4, X-H2s And X-T5. I don’t use the X-H2s (and need to sell them) because the layout is so different, and I prefer the X-T4 because it looks more like the X-T5. I will admit I bought it. Fujifilm X100VIbut this wasn’t my use as my main camera.

At 40MP, with IBIS, the X-T2 screen tilt design, and overall looking great, the X-T5 does everything I need it to. To be honest, the X-T4 does the job too. I only want 40MP for cropping and prefer the X-T2 style display.

The only thing potentially missing is something Sony is starting to add to its cameras… global shutter. In most cameras, there is a limited amount of time between the first pixel and the last pixel captured. With global shutter, all pixels are captured simultaneously. This prevents situations such as shutters where vertical objects are tilted due to movement.

Sony A9IIISony A9III

Sony A9III

Where it really shines is in flash photography. Normal shutter releases are limited by the sync speed of the camera; this is the faster shutter speed where the entire frame is captured at once. This limit is eliminated as the global shutter captures all pixels simultaneously. It causes a different problem; The flash duration may be longer than the shutter speed, so you won’t be able to use the full power of the flash for the duration of the shooting!

From a practical standpoint, your long-term investment is in lenses. These should be a lifetime purchase. Buy once, buy wisely and use forever. Cameras are tools that need to be replaced when necessary, but since we are at a point of evolution you can safely skip generations and not miss them. And if you’re honest with yourself, your old camera is probably good enough. You don’t need another camera.