5 Reasons to get an old DSLR in 2020 - Are DSLRs dead?

whenever i review a dslr lately i've been getting a lot of comments like dslrs are dead or there's no future for dslrs why are you reviewing a product with outdated technology well maybe some people think so highly of themselves they just cannot bring themselves to take any photos unless they have the latest and greatest cameras but personally i think there's still a lot of life left in dslrs so today i thought i'll talk about five reasons why you might want to buy an old dslr in 2020 and before all you maryland shooters get triggered i said the title is five reasons to get a dslr not five reasons why dslrs are better than mirrorless so there's a difference so keep that in mind and let's get started number one older dslrs are cheap cheaper doesn't always mean better in life but there are some exceptions and mirrorless cameras have been around for a while but it was really only in the past three or four years when they started to get really good and when we started to get some professional level bodies with dual car slots and bigger batteries and this is really when the mirrorless auto focusing system started to really outperform dslr autofocus systems with useful features like face and eye tracking and that was really just sony and canon and nikon are really just getting started so with mirrorless cameras older and cheaper almost always meant worse but with dslrs because they've been around for so much longer nowadays you can get a used full-frame professional cameras for less than the price of an entry-level brand new camera i actually just bought this 5d mark ii on ebay for less than 400 dollars and this camera has been used by hundreds of thousands of professionals around the world and not just by photographers but also by video production as well this camera has been used in films like black swan captain america iron man 2 and some tv shows as well like 24 or house the season seven of house was entirely shot with this camera as well and maybe that's still not good enough for your instagram on youtube but hey it's only 400 and not only that because dslr has been around longer their lenses are also a lot cheaper than most mirrorless lenses as well and they have a much bigger used market base and this is important because if you're just starting out it's good to be able to try as many lenses as possible without spending thousands of dollars just to give you a few examples the canon ef 50 millimeter 1.8 1.4 and also the 85 1.8 and the 24-105 f4 and the 24 to 72.8 and also the 70-200 2.8 and the list goes on but some of these lenses are literally less than half the price of the mirrorless equivalents and they're not bad lenses at all and unlike mirrorless lenses the most dslr lenses have been revised and updated several generations and the canon 70-200 f 2.8 mark iii for example is actually newer than the sony version and it's still about five or six hundred dollars cheaper and remember a camera's image quality has nothing to do with a camera being a dslr or a mirrorless camera it only changes the user experience and when you're buying an older and more affordable camera you're gonna have a much better experience with the dslr number two dslrs are bigger and more comfortable in the earlier days camera manufacturers focused on making their mirrorless cameras as small and light as possible because that was one of the benefits of mirrorless cameras but then they soon realized that not everyone wants smaller cameras and then they've been making their cameras bigger and bigger every generation you compare the original sony a7 which came out in 2014 i believe if you compare that with the newest versions the newest versions are like 200 grams heavier which is like a 50 increase in body weight in just like four or five years of time while you look at something like the 5d the body weight has barely changed in the past 15 years i have bigger than average sized hands and i've always struggled to find mirrorless cameras that fit my hands properly and you know we all wear different size shoes wear different size clothes but with cameras we all have to use what we've got and when you're shooting all day and if your camera doesn't feel comfortable in your hands it can be very frustrating and the bigger body naturally makes more room for bigger batteries and battery life on mirrorless cameras isn't much an issue anymore because like i said they've been getting bigger and bigger but when you have the same size battery on a mirrorless camera and a dslr you're gonna get a much better battery life with a dslr just because of the nature of how it works because on a mirrorless camera you have the lcd screen on the back and also in the viewfinder that your camera has to constantly power but with the dslr there's no need to do that so you're gonna get normally about two or sometimes three or four times more battery life with the same battery obviously i'm not saying all smaller cameras are bad smaller cameras are great for street photography or traveling and people with smaller hands will probably enjoy using smaller cameras more and there are time and place for everything but every time i get my hands on one of these cameras it just feels so comfortable it fits my hands so nicely all the buttons are perfectly placed it just lets me focus on things that matter instead of stressing about the body design which brings me to my next point dslrs are just more fun people often forget the fun in the act of shooting photos nowadays everything is automatic your camera is going to figure everything out for you you don't have to have to think too hard about your camera settings and your cameras will even focus on the subjects for you even before you think about it don't get me wrong these are all great things but if you're the type of person who values the process as much as the results this can make things a little less rewarding i drive a car with a manual transmission not because it gets me to places faster but because it makes driving more fun and some people like to collect watches not because they don't want to be late but because they like them and some people still shoot film not because it makes more sense in 2020 but because it's fun we're all human and we're not rational beings we're not robots and buying a camera or taking photos or not some mathematic equations otherwise we'd all be using the same camera driving the same cards wearing the same clothes but we're all different and that's what makes this world so interesting there's something very human about interacting with a tool with more room for error and with actual moving parts and the sound and the feeling that you get from your shutter there's something very nice about that and it just makes every shot you take a unique experience it makes you think and work harder as an artist every time you take a shot and that may feel a bit counterintuitive if you've never shot with an slr before but once you get really used to that believe me you're gonna be one of those dinosaurs like me telling people real photographers don't need mirrorless number four dslrs will make you a better photographer when we're driven by our vision not our gear it doesn't really matter what tools we use or how good our tools are like i said we're not robots we're human beings when we have imperfect tools we work harder we put in our work we work around our problems and eventually we adapt and we get used to things and we eventually get more efficient mirrorless cameras will probably make you better quicker and potentially it will make photography more accessible to more people just like how nowadays it's easier to learn how to drive for more people with automatic transmissions and also self-driving cars but when you're shooting with an optical viewfinder you have to pay closer attention to things and you have to think harder about how your settings are going to affect your outcome and when you don't get it right the first time you have to instantly think about what went wrong and what you did wrong and how you can fix your problems it takes a bit of practice but once you get used to that process you'll be a much better photographer than you were before and again this is not a video encouraging you to sell all your mirrorless gear and switch over to dslr but if you've never shot with an slr before and if you're looking for something different and if your goal is to just improve and grow as a photographer i would highly recommend it and there's no better time than now because everything's so affordable number five all modern dslrs are mirrorless cameras okay so everything sounds great but what if i still miss shooting with an electronic viewfinder what if i want to use the back screen so i can compose my shot from different angles well that's what the live view is for on most modern dslrs you press a button and the mirror flips up and the camera displays the constant feed of the video on the back screen and at that point your dslr is basically a mirrorless camera now if your dslr is more than seven or eight years old the autofocus and live view may not be as good or sometimes pretty much non-existent but as mirrorless cameras improved so did the live view because you know it's basically the same technology and for canon in particular since about i think 2013 they had dual pixel autofocus and for tracking faces and live view or especially in shooting video this has been better than pretty much anything we had on mirrorless cameras until very recently and canon still uses it on their mirrorless cameras and they've just improved it even further on their new r5 and the r6 so yeah obviously you're gonna see a lot more new and exciting innovations on mirrorless cameras nowadays because that's where the market is headed and it's just a newer technology and there is more room for improvements but when you're buying a dslr you're buying a piece of reliable gear that's been used by hundreds of thousands of professionals around the world for over decades and if you want to use it like a mirrorless camera you can so these are my five reasons why you should get an old dslr in and let me just say this again i'm not against mirrorless cameras i don't care what you use you can choose whatever tools you want to get your jobs done dslr mirrorless crop sensor full frame medium format nikon sony canon it doesn't matter and i don't care this isn't sports and you don't have to choose a team just use what you like try all of them use what you can afford and that's the main takeaway here really if you know how to get your job done it doesn't really matter what you use it's good to stay open-minded about new technologies but you shouldn't be crippled by it and think that you can't take any good photos unless you have the best camera in the world so that's it for me today thank you for watching and let me know in the comments what is your camera of choice and why do you think dslrs are still useful or do you think they're dead let me know in the comments and i'll see you in the next video bye

Channel: Hyun Ralph Jeong

Views: 131,788

Rating: 4.9236097 out of 5

Keywords: dslr, camera, best camera, best camera for beginners, dslr vs mirrorless, mirrorless vs dslr, canon, canon 5d, canon 5d mark ii, 5d mark i, 5d mark iii, 2020, canon dslr, canon 90d, canon t8i, nikon, sony, best camera under 500, 5 reasons, dslr in 2020, 2021, canon eos r, canon eos rp, canon r5, canon r6

Id: wn_Dq0AfK9Y

Length: 12min 15sec (735 seconds)

Published: Fri Aug 28 2020