DSLRs will never go away for me

 

My D300 with the Sigma 18-50 f/2.8 zoom

With most of the manufacturers going all-in on the mirrorless craze, you'd think the DSLRs are dinosaurs.  With film cameras, SLRs have always been my preferred platform, no matter the manufacturer. My first real camera was an SLR, and that's the way that I have been photographing for a long, long, time. My first DSLR was a Nikon D70s, and I used that camera for almost 10 years before I sold it.  I've shot with a lot of different digital cameras, including the m4/3 Olympus, Nikon 1 system, Fuji X100s, and my latest mirrorless, a Canon EOS M5.  However, were I to consistently use a DSLR, it comes down to a Nikon D3100 - mostly for ebay shots, as it sits on a tripod in my "studio."  My APS-C DSLR for anything else is my D300.  It's a rock solid DSLR that I can trust in any conditions, and works with a lot of lenses.  The only significant downside is that it uses Compact Flash (CF) cards, and not SD cards.  It has sat in the drawer for a while, unused, because I was getting a CHA error message on the 32GB card, and sometimes with a 4 GB card.  I tried a bunch of 1 GB CF cards and no problems. Hmm... I ordered a new 4GB CF card that arrived yesterday and it's fine, so yay!  For me, the D300's 12MP are enough for anything I do, and for macrophotography, it's absolutely great.  

My full-frame (FX) DSLR is a Nikon Df, with 16 MP, and again, it's a wonderful camera that uses all of my manual and AF lenses just fine.  It's what I pick up when I want to make great images.  It's paired right now with an old 28mm f/3.5 that was factory AI'd. so it works great as a manual lens on the Df.

My point with all this is that I refrained from switching to a Nikon mirrorless Z system because, dammit, I am not made of money, and second, my suite of lenses does everything I need.  The new lenses for those mirrorless Nikons are even bigger than the ones I already have.  There's an insane amount of money being spent by people that think they need a newer system.  Maybe some do, but at what point is there a diminishing return?  I see people saying they need the latest and greatest because they are gear jockeys and to them, that's their thing. Fine. It's your money.  

However, the thing is - I don't trust Electronic Viewfinders.  Sure, I use one on my EOS M5, but that's a special purpose camera, not my main one.  With a DSLR, I have a viewfinder that's a direct and immediate connection to what I am seeing.  That's how I do photography. I shoot a DSLR like I shoot film.  

So, my now more dependable D300 will get more use, and believe me, it's a great DSLR.  The controls are perfectly placed.  Also, neither my D300 or Df do video.  I'm not a video person, and the fact is, the latest cameras concentrate so much on video, that they lack some functions that appeal to still photographers. Making video-less DSLRs or even mirrorless models, would drop their prices considerably.  I think that's the real crime with these new cameras, and maybe also a reason for some to shoot film cameras - there's no video feature.  My iPhone can certainly handle any short video I may need to do.  Maybe I'm just a curmudgeon, but I bet there are a lot of photographers that would agree with me.  Manufacturers - don't turn every camera into a video camera. make some good, robust, still cameras that appeal to still photographers!  Maybe the Df is the last of the still-only, and that's why I love it.