Can a dedicated mirrorless shooter find true happiness with a DSLR?

Go Ray! It's GAS by proxy for me, and you do an excellent job. Thank you very much for your detailed FF reports, they've been very informative. Very much looking forward to your reports as you turn your attention back to Fuji. Of particular interest to me is how you end up feeling about pairing M4/3 with Fuji compared to just choosing one or the other (of course assuming there'd be a serious compact or two in addition - like your Nikon Coolpix A or a Ricoh GR).
 
Ray you mention live view. I like using that as well. One of the reasons I have the dslr I do (Canon 70d) is because of the flippy screen and what I would call usable Live view in a dslr. I'd like a full frame dslr but right now only the Sony a99 would give me a decent live view and flippy screen. The only problem with the Canon is the way the screen flips. I much prefer the OMD or better yet Sony Style.

I'm seriously thinking of going Olympus though. I think event the Fuji will be bigger than what I want to haul, especially if I want any glass over 100mm.
 
A bit surprised that you've had such issues with dust spots and stuff, but then I remember the spots on my Nikon D70.

My Pentax DSLRs have been much better, as good as my various mirrorless cameras in that regard. One of the first things that I do with them is set Dust Removal ON; the camera uses the Shake Reduction mechanism to vibrate the sensor every time I turn the camera on. It seems to work..

Sounds like you are set on the X-T1, Ray, so I won't try to pitch the Pentax K-3 plus primes at you. OVF is very nice AND Live View works great.
 
Go Ray! It's GAS by proxy for me, and you do an excellent job. Thank you very much for your detailed FF reports, they've been very informative. Very much looking forward to your reports as you turn your attention back to Fuji. Of particular interest to me is how you end up feeling about pairing M4/3 with Fuji compared to just choosing one or the other (of course assuming there'd be a serious compact or two in addition - like your Nikon Coolpix A or a Ricoh GR).

I've done this pairing before. Part of going with two systems is because they have different looks to their files and I like them both. Another part is that I like 3:2 more for most of my walk around shooting but I'm more than fine with 4:3 for longer lens portraits and just general telephoto work. I'm a little up in the air on ultra-wide. I have the Panasonic 7-14 currently but am curious about the new Fuji 10-24 (14-24 vs 15-36). Logic says that if the idea is to go wiiiiide, 3:2 should be the way to do it, but there's something about the taller frame pulling in all of that dramatic sky with the 7-14.... Have to see on that. I haven't really shot much with any m43 primes in quite a while and the last time I did it was basically with the 12mm when I was using the m43 gear for street work, which I don't anymore. So, at this point the m43 gear is for zooms and longer lenses (the 75mm is the only m43 prime I still own and that lens alone has kept me in the system a couple of times when I was having my doubts). But for walk around primes, which is what I spend the vast majority of my time with, I like the look and feel and aspect ratio of Fuji more than m43.... So I don't have a lot of overlap between the two - they kind of play different roles in my bag / shelf...

-Ray
 
I've done this pairing before. Part of going with two systems is because they have different looks to their files and I like them both... So, at this point the m43 gear is for zooms and longer lenses (the 75mm is the only m43 prime I still own and that lens alone has kept me in the system a couple of times when I was having my doubts). But for walk around primes, which is what I spend the vast majority of my time with, I like the look and feel and aspect ratio of Fuji more than m43.... So I don't have a lot of overlap between the two - they kind of play different roles in my bag / shelf...

-Ray

Makes perfect sense as you explain it. I'd probably go with both systems too if I could afford it, they're so compelling. But for now I'll to stick with one plus the GR.
 
I'd start a day with a basically clean sensor (maybe a bit of dust near the bottom of the frame where I'd never see it), but within a dozen or so shots, dust spots would start appearing in the sky and I'd have to clone them out during processing. I talked to a number of other DSLR shooters about this and it sounds like the degree of the issue varies and not everyone has the problem to the extent I seem to.

I have once had a DSLR (a Nikon D90) for one year with two lenses. I did not clean the sensor even once during the year I owned it, because there were no dust spots at all. Although full frame sensors are more critical than APS-C sensors, your problem seems to be a special one. The Nikon D600 had that problem due to an issue of the shutter unit. Nikon introduced the D610 which is identical to the D600 with an exchanged shutter unit. Your problem seems to be very similar to that problem. There should not be several dust spots on a freshly cleaned sensor within some dozen spots as long as you do not change lenses in a dusty environment rather often.
 
Ray,

It seems to me (in my vast ignorance) that the key to the problem is "I'd start with a basically clean sensor (maybe with a bit of dust at the bottom)".

The moving mirror must create a great deal of turbulence within the sensor space. If there is any dust in there, the moving mirror is going to kick it up and move it around. Think of the flapping mirror as a dust redistribution system, IMHO. With a film DSLR, you don't have that problem, because you are advancing the film after every shot, giving you a clean imaging surface each time.

In fact, as I think about the issue of system cameras of any type and changing lenses out there is the big old dusty world, the ideal solution would be a camera body mated to every lens you might want to use and you never change lenses out where the sensor can get besmirched. I recall a number of working photographers who carry two DSLRs: one with a wide zoom, the other with a tele zoom.

Of course, if you are willing to give up on IQ, dynamic range, and low light sensitivity, a nice superzoom will give you all the focal lengths you want and eliminate worries of dusty sensors.:D

Nevertheless, it has been a great deal of fun -- and educational too! -- to read about your adventures with the Df.

Cheers, Jock
 
I have once had a DSLR (a Nikon D90) for one year with two lenses. I did not clean the sensor even once during the year I owned it, because there were no dust spots at all. Although full frame sensors are more critical than APS-C sensors, your problem seems to be a special one. The Nikon D600 had that problem due to an issue of the shutter unit. Nikon introduced the D610 which is identical to the D600 with an exchanged shutter unit. Your problem seems to be very similar to that problem. There should not be several dust spots on a freshly cleaned sensor within some dozen spots as long as you do not change lenses in a dusty environment rather often.

I'm aware of the D600 / D610 issue and I don't think this is that. Those had oil from the shutter mechanism getting on the sensor, requiring frequent wet-cleaning to get it off. Mine was dust, because it was easily moveable, but I couldn't seem to get all of it out of the body cavity of the camera and then once the mirror started moving around, so did the dust. As for changing lenses in a dusty environment, all I can say is I treated the Df exactly as I'd been treating my mirrorless cameras in terms of where and how I'd change lenses - no better or worse. And I never had a dust spot show up in a shot from any of the other cameras I've used over the years. And in the last few weeks, I've looked hard for any. The other thing that gives me more than pause is some of the discussions of sensor cleaning on the Nikon FX forum and a number of people with models other than the D600 talking of frequent sensor cleaning being part of their regular routine. Some people said they clean their sensor daily, others maybe a couple of times per week, some more like a couple of times a month but then up to a couple of times per week if they're shooting a lot. And even the lesser of those frequencies sounds like something I don't want to deal with.

Part of it may also be how I tend to process my stuff. In a LOT of cases, I'd bring up the basic shot with only standard raw processing applied and I wouldn't see any spots. Or maybe I'd see them if I'd look REALLY close, but you probably wouldn't see them if you weren't looking for them. But as I'd do my typical processing in Color Efex Pro or Silver Efex Pro, the combination of contrast and "structure" or in some cases "detail extraction" would make them pop right out and then I'd have to clone them out of the photo. It may be that I'd end up being pickier about it than many because my typical processing seems to bring them out more than what some folks probably do. But either way, all I can compare it to is my experience with every other camera I've used (all without moving parts in the body) and I'd never cleaned or even used a blower on a single sensor before this experience. It's just something I don't even really want to solve, particularly since I had other reasons to decide not to buy the Df anyway.

Thanks for all of the thoughts and advice, Pictor and others, but I'm OK with where I am on this.... Even if I'd never run into a single dust spot, I think I'd have probably ended up in the same place.

-Ray
 
The moving mirror must create a great deal of turbulence within the sensor space. If there is any dust in there, the moving mirror is going to kick it up and move it around. Think of the flapping mirror as a dust redistribution system, IMHO. With a film DSLR, you don't have that problem, because you are advancing the film after every shot, giving you a clean imaging surface each time.

In fact, as I think about the issue of system cameras of any type and changing lenses out there is the big old dusty world, the ideal solution would be a camera body mated to every lens you might want to use and you never change lenses out where the sensor can get besmirched. I recall a number of working photographers who carry two DSLRs: one with a wide zoom, the other with a tele zoom.
Yeah, my old film SLRs were the only other time I've used cameras with moving parts inside the camera body and, as you note, the sensor has a pretty good self cleaning mechanism there - you might get dust on one shot, but it'd be gone by the next. And now that I think of it, I do remember dealing with the occasional dust spot on a negative here or there...

But I've changed a LOT of lenses on my mirrorless ILCs in all sorts of conditions out in the big bad world, and somehow their sensor cleaning routines and lack of moving parts has kept any dust that got into the body off of the sensor.

-Ray
 
The thought of doing a sensor clean with that regularity would put me off any camera, and I don't quite know why it should be such a problem in the Df. Susceptibility to sensor dust is not exclusive to DSLRs however, nor even exclusive to interchangeable lens cameras. In general I have had less sensor dust problems with mirrorless cameras compared to DSLRs, although I wouldn't have said that my old Canon (and the occasional NIkon) DSLRs were bad. Some of them were even of a generation when there were no built-in sensor cleaning mechanisms.
 
Yeah, my old film SLRs were the only other time I've used cameras with moving parts inside the camera body and, as you note, the sensor has a pretty good self cleaning mechanism there - you might get dust on one shot, but it'd be gone by the next. And now that I think of it, I do remember dealing with the occasional dust spot on a negative here or there...

But I've changed a LOT of lenses on my mirrorless ILCs in all sorts of conditions out in the big bad world, and somehow their sensor cleaning routines and lack of moving parts has kept any dust that got into the body off of the sensor.

-Ray

Back when I shot film, I don't recall ever seeing a dust spot recorded in a film negative or slide, and I never recall any of the pros I worked with worrying about the problem. Dust on a negative during the printing process, however, was a continual pain in the cheeks and regarded as Evil Incarnate by those (sometimes me) doing the printing. Compressed air and rewashing usually helped.

One time, though, I was trying to print an image of an old wooden shed -- aged wood surrounding a darkened doorway, and this spec of pure white kept appearing where the black of the doorway should have been. Using several of the more interesting short words, I must have re-washed and re-printed that image three times until one of the guys in the darkroom remarked, "You know, I think that must be light leaking through from the backside of the shed." Oh.

Cheers, Jock
 
Back when I shot film, I don't recall ever seeing a dust spot recorded in a film negative or slide, and I never recall any of the pros I worked with worrying about the problem. Dust on a negative during the printing process, however, was a continual pain in the cheeks and regarded as Evil Incarnate by those (sometimes me) doing the printing. Compressed air and rewashing usually helped.

One time, though, I was trying to print an image of an old wooden shed -- aged wood surrounding a darkened doorway, and this spec of pure white kept appearing where the black of the doorway should have been. Using several of the more interesting short words, I must have re-washed and re-printed that image three times until one of the guys in the darkroom remarked, "You know, I think that must be light leaking through from the backside of the shed." Oh.

Cheers, Jock

Great story LOL!
 
Indeed, hilarious. I'll have to remember "several of the more interesting short words"!

Now that you mention it, I don't think I ever had problem with dust on the film either, but just dust on the fully horizontal negative during printing. I remember those days well, but probably not all that clearly! I think the last time I spent any serious time in a darkroom was somewhere around 1983. I first started about ten years before that and spent a LOT of long nights in them during that time. Those ten years are also responsible for many of the most vivid memories of my life, but nowhere close to the most accurate ones! I think it was chemicals encountered outside of the darkroom that are largely responsible for that, but who knows - there's just about total overlap so some of the developer and fixer I inhaled may have played a role...

-Ray
 
Ray, first off welcome back to the world of Fuji. I just got an email from B&H saying I should see my X-T1 on Friday.
Dust on the sensor is a large problem for me when shooting with medium format and our DSLR Canons and Nikons. usually it is just a matter of blowing the dust off with a blower, sadly other times require a more aggressive approach.
 
Ray, first off welcome back to the world of Fuji. I just got an email from B&H saying I should see my X-T1 on Friday.
Dust on the sensor is a large problem for me when shooting with medium format and our DSLR Canons and Nikons. usually it is just a matter of blowing the dust off with a blower, sadly other times require a more aggressive approach.

Well, to paraphrase, 'I got 99 problems and...... I don't need 100!'. Even a small to moderate problem isn't something I want to deal with unless the benefits are pretty big. And, as noted, with the lenses I'm willing to use, the benefits aren't big enough.

And thanks for the welcome back. I made up my mind Saturday evening, found a shop in the Seattle area that was still open and had bodies in stock, and placed an order. Got that, through the miracle of priority mail, yesterday - I couldn't believe they'd actually get it out on Saturday that late but they did. Ordered lenses and a couple of batteries from B&H yesterday and already got them from UPS this morning. So I'm sitting here with the 14 and 18 (again), and 23 (for the first time). I'm sure I'll get the 56 when it's available and may check out the 10-24 too, but may just stick with the 7-14 on the EM1. I may also check out the Samyang or Rokinon 85 at some point. Took me about a half hour to work through the menus and figure out the handful of features I hadn't seen before. The 14mm has a more reasonably resistant aperture ring than the previous model I had and is smaller than I remember. The 18 is as remembered, and the 23 is very very nice. Very nice camera body too. Small but not too small. The EVF is great (as they all seem to be getting now), the shutter has an odd little two step sound that makes it sound kind of slow, but it clearly isn't and I'm sure I'll get used to it soon enough. Very solid, very familiar. Nice to be back!

-Ray
 
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