There have been several posts asking about the “demise” of the DSLR. Last night was our monthly model night at the club. I took the opportunity to see what camera everybody brought. Our club is made up of pros, enthusiasts and the occasional noob. Last night we had 10 shooters - the Bengals were playing, so a light turnout. Cameras used were:

Mirrorless - 1 (2 if you count the iPhone a noob brought, but he used a D70s offered by a member)
DSLR - 9

DSLR - 9 (6 Nikon, 2 Canon & 1 Pentax)
micro 4:3 - 1 (Olympus IIRC)
FF/APSC MLIC - 0

At least 1 of the DSLR shooters also has a Fuji X-T2 (APSC mirrorless). Several also have film SLR bodies that occasionally show up on studio night. A couple have, and use film medium format cameras too.

There has been some interest in the mirrorless options and a few of the members have purchased a MILC. Only 1 member that I am aware of has made the switch to fully MILC. I am sure MILCs will continue to make inroads, but I doubt most of the members will dump DSLR for MILC in the near future.

There are many reasons for this.

Demographics is one... If most of your club members are over 40, chances are, they are heavily invested in Nikon or Canon or other SLR/dSLR lenses. Most would not consider a change yet, because of their considerable inventory of expensive glass.

"Bragging rights" is another. "Mine's bigger than yours" keeps lots of guys in the heavy camera/long lens crowd.

I'm 63, and one of the rare people in my age group who gave up dSLRs for mirrorless. After studying mirrorless gear for a couple of years, I got rid of all my Nikon and Canon stuff in favor of Panasonic's Lumix Micro 4/3 system. It was a radical change, but it was absolutely the best thing I ever did with cameras. Here's why:

I RECORD EQUAL AMOUNTS OF STILLS AND VIDEO. The Lumix GH4 lets me get great results with one system.

GH4 still photos are perfectly fine for the training materials I create, and for the occasional event work I do. I have made a few 40" by 30" prints from full, uncropped images. They look great at 50", the recommended minimum viewing distance for a 40x30 (i.e.; the print diagonal dimension). 20x16/16x20 prints are great at any viewing distance! And, of course, smaller prints and images in a letter size document or on the web or any screen look fine.

GH4 Full HD 1080P and 4K video is good enough for documentaries, training, independent short films, TV commercials, Friday night football... AND, as a bonus, the audio quality is fantastic. No, I don't use the internal microphones. That would be ignorant of the inverse/square law with any video or stills camera that also records video. The GH4 has stereo mic in and headphone out jacks, plus peak level meters, level control, switchable peak limiters, and 76db signal-to-noise ratio pre-amps. That's adequate for many tasks and accommodates two mics with the proper external equipment. For anything REALLY important, I'll add an external audio recorder and feed the camera with "pass through" audio from it.

Low light work is fine down to ISO 2500 to 3200. In an emergency, 6400 is usable, especially for video. That's roughly two stops slower than a full frame dSLR, but for my needs, that's okay! If I'm working on anything important (film project, training, documentary...) I'm going to light it gently, anyway. I worked for 35 years with 400 speed films with much worse results for stills, and NO results for video. Besides, all my lenses are image stabilized, and give me about three f/stops of extra hand-holdability.

If I need shallow depth of field, I'll rent a fast lens such as the Leica 42.5mm f/1.2 Nocticron, or one of the Voigtlander Noktons (f/0.95). But my style is to use long lenses for shallow DOF anyway, so that's seldom an issue.

What really sealed the deal for me was that I can do everything I need to do with one system. I don't have to "switch mental gears" to go back and forth from a classic camcorder form factor to a dSLR form factor. I don't have to carry or check two cases. I don't have to have one set of lenses for stills and one for video. I can work COMPLETELY silently in a dark theatre, recording either stills or video, without disturbing anyone with shutter noise, or mirror slap, or light from an LCD screen. I can fit a very capable kit — camera or two, three lenses, flash, wireless mic system, shotgun mic, batteries, charger, cables, etc. — under an airline seat.

I learned a long time ago not to "Major on the minor." For example, I don't own a truck or a van... I need one only a couple of times a year. So I don't pay for a $40,000 vehicle that's hard to park, expensive to insure, requires massive tires, costs tons of money for gas, or causes me to worry about my stuff getting wet or my passengers being cramped. So if I need a full frame dSLR or mirrorless setup, I can rent it for a day or a week or a month from borrowlenses.com or lensrentals.com.

In short, I don't care what the crowd owns or uses. It simply does not matter to me, for my needs. I'm going to use the right tools for my jobs, and so should you. If that's a film camera, or a full frame dSLR, or a high end camcorder, or an antique porcelain foot (!), so be it. Do your homework and get what you need.

In the end, what matters is what you did with it!

There have been several posts asking about the “demise” of the DSLR. Last night was our monthly model night at the club. I took the opportunity to see what camera everybody brought. Our club is made up of pros, enthusiasts and the occasional noob. Last night we had 10 shooters - the Bengals were playing, so a light turnout. Cameras used were:

Mirrorless - 1 (2 if you count the iPhone a noob brought, but he used a D70s offered by a member)
DSLR - 9

DSLR - 9 (6 Nikon, 2 Canon & 1 Pentax)
micro 4:3 - 1 (Olympus IIRC)
FF/APSC MLIC - 0

At least 1 of the DSLR shooters also has a Fuji X-T2 (APSC mirrorless). Several also have film SLR bodies that occasionally show up on studio night. A couple have, and use film medium format cameras too.

There has been some interest in the mirrorless options and a few of the members have purchased a MILC. Only 1 member that I am aware of has made the switch to fully MILC. I am sure MILCs will continue to make inroads, but I doubt most of the members will dump DSLR for MILC in the near future.

There are many reasons for this.

Demographics is one... If most of your club members are over 40, chances are, they are heavily invested in Nikon or Canon or other SLR/dSLR lenses. Most would not consider a change yet, because of their considerable inventory of expensive glass.

"Bragging rights" is another. "Mine's bigger than yours" keeps lots of guys in the heavy camera/long lens crowd.

I'm 63, and one of the rare people in my age group who gave up dSLRs for mirrorless. After studying mirrorless gear for a couple of years, I got rid of all my Nikon and Canon stuff in favor of Panasonic's Lumix Micro 4/3 system. It was a radical change, but it was absolutely the best thing I ever did with cameras. Here's why:

I RECORD EQUAL AMOUNTS OF STILLS AND VIDEO. The Lumix GH4 lets me get great results with one system.

GH4 still photos are perfectly fine for the training materials I create, and for the occasional event work I do. I have made a few 40" by 30" prints from full, uncropped images. They look great at 50", the recommended minimum viewing distance for a 40x30 (i.e.; the print diagonal dimension). 20x16/16x20 prints are great at any viewing distance! And, of course, smaller prints and images in a letter size document or on the web or any screen look fine.

GH4 Full HD 1080P and 4K video is good enough for documentaries, training, independent short films, TV commercials, Friday night football... AND, as a bonus, the audio quality is fantastic. No, I don't use the internal microphones. That would be ignorant of the inverse/square law with any video or stills camera that also records video. The GH4 has stereo mic in and headphone out jacks, plus peak level meters, level control, switchable peak limiters, and 76db signal-to-noise ratio pre-amps. That's adequate for many tasks and accommodates two mics with the proper external equipment. For anything REALLY important, I'll add an external audio recorder and feed the camera with "pass through" audio from it.

Low light work is fine down to ISO 2500 to 3200. In an emergency, 6400 is usable, especially for video. That's roughly two stops slower than a full frame dSLR, but for my needs, that's okay! If I'm working on anything important (film project, training, documentary...) I'm going to light it gently, anyway. I worked for 35 years with 400 speed films with much worse results for stills, and NO results for video. Besides, all my lenses are image stabilized, and give me about three f/stops of extra hand-holdability.

If I need shallow depth of field, I'll rent a fast lens such as the Leica 42.5mm f/1.2 Nocticron, or one of the Voigtlander Noktons (f/0.95). But my style is to use long lenses for shallow DOF anyway, so that's seldom an issue.

What really sealed the deal for me was that I can do everything I need to do with one system. I don't have to "switch mental gears" to go back and forth from a classic camcorder form factor to a dSLR form factor. I don't have to carry or check two cases. I don't have to have one set of lenses for stills and one for video. I can work COMPLETELY silently in a dark theatre, recording either stills or video, without disturbing anyone with shutter noise, or mirror slap, or light from an LCD screen. I can fit a very capable kit — camera or two, three lenses, flash, wireless mic system, shotgun mic, batteries, charger, cables, etc. — under an airline seat.

I learned a long time ago not to "Major on the minor." For example, I don't own a truck or a van... I need one only a couple of times a year. So I don't pay for a $40,000 vehicle that's hard to park, expensive to insure, requires massive tires, costs tons of money for gas, or causes me to worry about my stuff getting wet or my passengers being cramped. So if I need a full frame dSLR or mirrorless setup, I can rent it for a day or a week or a month from borrowlenses.com or lensrentals.com.

In short, I don't care what the crowd owns or uses. It simply does not matter to me, for my needs. I'm going to use the right tools for my jobs, and so should you. If that's a film camera, or a full frame dSLR, or a high end camcorder, or an antique porcelain foot (!), so be it. Do your homework and get what you need.

In the end, what matters is what you did with it!

True, but during that period, you couldn't adjust you ISO (ASA) on the camera.. you shot Tri-X as ASA 400 but you could push it (unfortunately you had to push the entire roll and it was a processing decision). However, you did have the option to purchase and shoot with other grades of film with lower ISO/ASA numbers. Plus-X etc. I generally carried several rolls of film with varying grades and both negatives and slide film.. I also had a frigerator in the darkroom to store film in the freezer and also in the refrigerator part. I carried extra film in a cooler etc. Digital is so much easier... I can change ISO on the fly.. etc. Oh and I no longer have to drag an ice chest full of film. And yes, Tri-x was (generally) only good up to 8x10.. but was a favorite for news photographers because of it's speed (and rarely was a photo printed in a newspaper that was 8x10.
Now, I don't have to stock all of the different flavors of film... don't have a need for a darkroom (I have "Lightroom" and Photoshop on my computer, the wife's computer and 2 laptops) so my "darkroom" can travel with me. I no longer have to wait till I get home to make sure that my photos came out. I can look that afternoon or evening and see what (if any) I need to reshoot... Oh and I can look on the "live view" screen on the back of the camera also.