speters Loc: Grangeville/Idaho

I think products for the F mount, as well as the EF mount will still be being made in the future, but to a lesser degree, as a shift already has left the start line. Everybody is putting great effort in the full frame mirrorless market with totally new lens mounts, that surely will carry the main load of new invention in the time to come. Watch out for Panasonic here, as I think it will play a big role in the forefront of all this and secure a top spot for its products throughout the market! But as I earlier mentioned, the F and EF mount won't be totally forgotten and remain in the line-up!

xt2 Loc: British Columbia, Canada

nadelewitz Loc: Ithaca NY

My sentiment exactly.

larryepage Loc: North Texas area

I apologize for hijacking this thread. That was not the intent, but rather to call up a parallel shift in technology from about 40 years ago to suggest what might be happening in photography now and look at those results to see if there might be anything to learn about the present shift in technology which is under discussion.

As stated, I am no longer able to be an audiophile...the ears won't support it. But I still like and enjoy music. Declining vision may someday prevent me from being a photophile too...but I hope to continue having fun taking pictures even if and when that happens.

karno Loc: Chico ,California

I have not decided to make the transition,
I am investigating it.
The only thing that interests me about the mirrorless is the ability to focus manual focus lenses,reduced weight with the ability to mount m mount lenses, for hiking and travel.
But also to have a mount that has the focus on the future.
The Nikon z has one major flaw that keeps me from moving into that system if they fix it then I might consider it.
Another so called advantage is to be able to see during bright and dark situations, though the Nikon z evf does not stay bright enough under these conditions from what I hear.
I really don’t make decisions upon what articles tell me to do?
I make decisions more upon what I want.
Cheers

karno Loc: Chico ,California

No apologies necessary my friend, I enjoy reading people’s thoughts and the parallel is relevant to technological change and the power of the dollar to influence it.

scsdesphotography Loc: Southeastern Michigan

Wow, I am so gratified to find so many photographers on this forum who are also knowledgeable audiophiles. I have been an audiophile for 40 years, long before I took up photography. I had not thought of the parallels of the two until I read your post. The similarities of the history of the art of audio recording and the art of photography is amazing. Even the discussions of which is better are parallel: vinyl vs. CD, film vs. digital, tube vs. solid state, APS-C vs. full frame, moving coil vs. moving magnet cartridges, SLR vs. mirrorless, and I could list more. I'm prepared to add a lot more, but this is a photography forum, so I'll hold back on that. Just happy to see that there are others who share a similar passion for both of these arts. And for those members here whose only source of music are downloads from iTunes, you are so missing out on the real experience that uncompressed music has to offer. I suggest that you seek out an audiophile (we love to show off our stuff) or a real audio shop and listen to the real thing.

nadelewitz Loc: Ithaca NY

Of course you can focus manual-focus lenses with your DSLR! What do you mean by this?

Read enough posts and you will hear that mirrorless doesn't save significant weight, and mirrorless-designed lenses are heavier.

Hiking or travel? What difference does mirrorless make?

no nameJoe

QIT will depend on the age of the clientele like mezI am invested in nikon dslr both fx and dx also Sony mirrorless, being 84 years old, I will not buy into the nikon mirrorless because of the different mount if you put an adapter the wiegt difference is negated so it would an investement on new lenses I will keep on using what I have already spent my money on

karno Loc: Chico ,California

Yes it is much easier and efficient to manual focus with evf!!

There is an significant weight reduction with mirrorless if you use the f 1.8 native lenses, or m mount.

Do a little research

kenArchi Loc: Seal Beach, CA

Audiophile here.
At 13 years old, 1959, I converted my desk into a full blown stereo system, ran wires under the house to speakers.

kenArchi Loc: Seal Beach, CA

Cameras at Costco no longer fly off the shelves. It look's like they are becoming paper weight.
Tell the masses mirrowless and they will just scratch their head.

Bill P

We must understand that a shift to mirrorless is inevitable. It all has to do with one thnig, production costs. It is likely that dslr's will be around for a while at he very top end, for pros like sports shooters who want the immediacy of the ovf. The camera company, on the other hand, wants something that can be assembled by robots. A dslr requires a lot of precision hand labor, ant that should make mirrorless, if produced in comparable volumes, less expensive. So what's more important? Yes we want great cameras, but the great camera that costs less will win.

andrew d

Regarding digital vs analog audio. Also a dedicated audiophile, there have been huge improvements in record playing equipment since the 80s. My Zyx low output mc cartridge/VPI player/step up transformer is almost always more natural sounding than CDs, or even hi rez digital (24-192 on Qobuz). I blame engineering and mastering for the poor to adequate sound on most CDs- there's no dynamic range and also no scientific reason that some vinyl made from digital masters sound better. But there's a humanity on vinyl that is missing on digital. Could it be something added by the playback system? Sure. Also, there are a lot of bad records that sound like crap.

To both of the last posters- Listen to a reasonably good turntable cartridge combo, preferably with a decent tube preamp. Use records washed in a vacuum cleaning system. You will be surprised at the fidelity, dynamics, quiet backgrounds, and even frequency extension of well engineered records. I put a minty original Simon and Garfunkel album the other day, there was plenty of info going to the subs. Guitars sound like my Martin- this was recorded with microphones instead of the acoustic guitar pickups used now.

Pace.

TriX Loc: Raleigh, NC

Just some thoughts and comments.

First, most current solid state amps do not use output transformers so the actual load impedance is controlled by the speaker. On the other hand, tubes, which have a much higher impedance than transistors (because the voltage-to-current ratio is higher) do use an output transformer whose secondary impedance is matched to the loudspeaker.

Secondly, in my opinion, based on extensive real-world measurements, there are 3 basic reasons that tube amps sound different, or warmer or more musical, or...

Number one - when tube amps are over driven, their distortion increases much more slowly than solid state amps. A 100 W. solid state amp may have .05% THD or IM at 100 watts, but increases to .5% (an order of magnitude!) at 115 watts (an actual measurement from a Yamaha solid state amp). This is one reason tube amps are often used in studio mic preamps, where it’s had to control the input level, which may quickly change drastically.

Number two - because tube amps have a slower transient response or slew rate than a solid state amp, and the damping factor is lower, they produce a “softer” response to transients. I recall a listener test of multiple CD players, and the worst players in terms of square wave response were the most preferred by listeners.

Number three - I can’t state that this is true for all amps, but the tube amps I’ve built have the majority of distortion products as even-order distortion (2nd, 4th harmonic, etc), while the solid state amps I’ve tested have predominately odd-order distortion (3rd, 5th harmonic, etc). In western music (from what little I know of it), chords are often made up of even order harmonics - an octave is 2x in frequency, and it may be (just my conjecture) that we are more comfortable with even order distortion. That supposition needs some real investigation.

Finally, on the subject of feedback, the holy grail of a segment of the audiophile community is zero negative feedback (along with SET or single-ended triode power amps, usually using a 2A3 - a triode dating back to the beginning of radio). That will get you very limited power and very high distortion, both of which I find unacceptable. Even with effecient speakers (unless you listen with headphones) you need clean power to accurately articulate transients without noticeable distortion. And if you employ zero feed back, the THD and IM distortion is terrible - 3-5% (!) is not uncommon. The question is not only how much negative feedback to use, but how it is applied. McIntosh (mentioned earlier) put an extra cathode winding on the output transformer. I prefer the classic push-pull ultralinear configuration with the feedback path adjustable and the response shaped by a proprietary network.

Cheers