Mirrorless cameras are fantastic with all the high-end technology they’ve got stuffed in them. But they also encourage us to think a lot less than before. This is one of the reasons why we highly encourage photographers to shoot film. But even so, if you started with a DSLR camera, you’ll find that you made better images when you used one. Why? Well, there are a few reasons — and the biggest one involves simplicity. However, there’s a delicate balance involved here with becoming more a part of the image-taking process.
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The Old Way of the DSLR Camera
One of the greatest and most influential digital cameras ever was the Canon 5D Mk II. The autofocus was behind what Nikon could do back then, but photographers could take incredible photos with it. The Canon 5D Mk II was a DSLR camera with only 9 autofocus points, arguably the only focus points that mattered. Coupled with the fact that a photographer could display a grid in the viewfinder to help with composition, they could focus on making better photos as much as they wanted. There was no scene detection or AI detection. In fact, the autofocus on this camera really only had one good point: the middle. Sometimes, you could get a subject in focus on the edges and the intersection points of the rule of thirds — that was rare, though.
Photographers then centered their subjects and composed the scene based on the autofocus point working for or against their creative vision. This, in turn, made photographers work for the photograph using whatever DSLR camera they had. It wasn’t until mirrorless cameras came around that autofocus took a significant step forward. Some photographers call this a variation of the term “working the scene.” In some circles of the vernacular, it means that you’d try various angles, focal lengths, and more to get all the essential elements of the frame just right.
It also helped that the Canon 5D Mk II had a ton of megapixels for the time, so many photographers ended up cropping and shooting almost like a medium format DSLR camera. Many didn’t, though — and instead, they made gorgeous photos by working around the center of the frame.
To see fantastic examples of this, I’m turning to Flickr. You can go there, sort the photos, and see precisely what we’re discussing in this article. The compositions have an enigmatic je ne sais quoi that makes you want to stare into them. I’m in love with this specific example from Role Bigler that shows a super flexible cow trying to lick itself. These days, we’d demand that modern mirrorless cameras get the eyes of the cow in focus. However, that’s not required in this photo. What makes it so unique is that we already know that it’s a cow and so flexible that it can lick its side. Licking its side is what’s important here. Modern camera manufacturers think we always want the eyes in focus, but there are cases where it’s not the better choice.
Mirrorless Cameras Have Autofocus That Can Make Us Lazy
You can do all of this with your mirrorless camera easily. The best systems to do this method are probably Leica and Fujifilm. This is because they’re arguably behind the rest of the brands somehow. While they’ve both got scene detection, they’re not as advanced as Canon, Nikon, and Sony. So instead, you should shoot with them like they’re film cameras. That means that your focus point is set to the center, then you compose the scene accordingly.
Theoretically, any photographer could do this by turning off scene detection. But we can all agree that scene detection can have its uses. However, we shouldn’t let the cameras and camera manufacturers determine what we’re autofocusing on.
To hammer this in, I want to harken back to some old-school Leica marketing that isn’t necessarily wrong, but it’s undoubtedly targeted. With their M4, Leica called out to the idea of the Thinking Photographer. Here’s a quote from our article on this:
While a good number of photographers continue to shoot with the Leica M4 today, the vintage ad reminds us of a time very much different from the way we take photos today. Due to innovations in camera technology, much of today’s generation of photographers never need to manually focus or exposure, even if these options have always been present. Still, those who want to see what it’s like to shoot with a “think camera” only have to master shooting in manual mode with or without a Leica M4!
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A photographer can surely think carefully about the shot if they’re using a DSLR camera, film camera, or digital mirrorless camera. But it’s how they use it that matters. These days, most photographers rely on modes that do the work for them. This is part of the study of humanity that states that as we use technology, we become the technology and rely on it more and more. That’s because we become lazier and automatically default those tasks to the tech. It’s seen everywhere — how many people use and own a rice maker? What about a coffee maker? Do you hop into your car anymore to start it up? Are you someone who physically gets up to turn off all the lights when you’re ready to go to bed? Or do you ask Alexa to do it for you?
One is All You Need
Photographers: All you need is one single good autofocus point. Ideally, that point is somewhere near the center of the frame and in the areas of the rule of thirds intersections. You can make photos worth staring at this way. More importantly, sometimes you just need to slow down and get better photographs by working for the shot instead of having the camera determine what you need to do. In the end, this makes you shoot smarter — and it makes you a thinking photographer. Try it with your mirrorless camera, DSLR camera, film camera, or anything else!