A mirrorless future?

It's no secret that I prefer DSLR's over mirrorless cameras. They generally have better controls, better battery life, and better viewfinders. I was recently reading about a mirrorless camera that came to market, and it has occurred to me that there could be a serious upside to the future of these cameras.


The camera that inspired my reevaluation of mirrorless cameras was made by Samsung and included a specialized baseball mode. The camera was supposed to be able to track a baseball headed to the plate and know the best time to release the shutter. I don't do sports photography, so I have no use for this specialized mode. If other specialized modes were developed, this could become a much bigger deal.

I take a lot of pictures of birds. What if a bird-tracking mode became available? There are already attempts for tracking a subject for focusing, but there could be advantages to a bird-specific tracking algorithm.

Identifying a bird through the sensor could help isolate the subject from possible auto-focus distractions. Your camera could even know which bird you are following if there are several flying in and out of the frame. Aperture and shutter speed could be automatically set based off of lighting, bird speed, bird size, and more. If a bird is traveling through different lighting conditions, auto-exposure could be better calculated than what is currently possible with DSLR's. When the camera determines that conditions are right, the shutter could automatically trigger.

In the long run, a bird-tracking mode could be refined. Types of birds and basic bahaviors could be recognized. A camera could start understanding that it needs to treat a raptor landing on it's nest much differently from a swallow in flight. Perhaps cameras will eventually start identifying species for the photographer.

In the distant future, cameras could potentially include robust mode types with algorithms designed to detect the kind of pictures being taken. A mode would no longer need to be selected.

We are still a long way from me switching to mirrorless. Electronic viewfinders are improving, and that DSLR benefit is in the decline. DSLR's also require more components, which make them heavier and more expensive. I'm just too reluctant to give up the viewfinder, battery life, and advanced control (although that one is primarily a design choice) to give up my DSLR.

Will I ever switch my primary camera to a mirrorless? Probably not. I'm not convinced that they will become advanced enough fast enough. That said, I certainly see potential. If features advance enough that I would consistently prefer modes with advanced algorithms over utilizing an optical viewfinder, I will certainly look again.