The olympus EM1 with 40-150 f/2.8 Pro is very light, Fuji is nice too with some frustrations. Generally mirrorless has gotten bigger lately reducing its advantage over a DSLR. Except with a small primes I have never seen any advantage in FF mirrorless like Sony A7 series.
Hey Right on I really appreciate you helping me with this discussion! I actually have made my mind up! After tons of research I will be keeping my D810. I took about 30-45mins playing with the A6000 at best buy and that's was enough for me to really want 11FPS! YES! The focus tracking was super cool! I will be getting a Fotodiox Pro adapter to connect my Nikon Glass later on. I would actually use this to shoot a wedding for the super fast fps to capture that instant reaction that maybe a d810 would miss! My d810 is my Landscape dream! But on the fly a6000 ftw! thanks so much!
I know a professional outdoors photographer who uses a Nikon D800 most of the time.When the Olympus OMD first came out he bought one and a couple lenses for it.He uses the Nikon when he isn't backpacking and the Olympus when he's packing everything.It saves about half the weight and space of the Nikon and makes excellent pictures.I use micro 4/3 because if fit my old back,my tight budget,and I didn't already have any autofocus SLR lenses.
Not knowing the lenses this Nikon shooter is using might shed some more light on the weight issue. If he was also carrying 70 to 200mm f2.8 and 28 to 70mm f2.8 a 28mm and a 35mm that just might be too many lens. I would go with prime lenses no more than two and frame your shots more carefully. That will cut down on weight considerably. BTW I use to make day hikes with my 4x5 view camera one lens 150mm f5.6 Fugion it wasn't that heavy. Shot like you only had film; fewer shots careful composistion. I only with I had a digital SLR on any kind...I am still in a film camera world..only a Panasonic GX-1, but I have the nikon adaptor for my lenses. Let me know if you want to dump that Nikon...ha ha.
Hey, Snapchich, when are you going back to being blonde again? Definitely suits you better, enlightens your face, makes it look a little bit less... austere -kind of "school teacher" like...more photogenic! ;-)
Hi snapchick I've been watching your videos for a while now and you never answer my questions but do you have anything where ask a question I need help , please reply :)
Hi snapchick, I like the larger cameras , because I have large hands , the smaller cameras ,I fill like I will drop it. I love the size of my Nikon D2X. IT my be an old camera but it takes great photos.
I came very close to getting a QS1 as a pocketable companion to my A7. But then panasonic released the GM5. What an amazing little camera. It's about the same body size as the Q but with a 4/3 sensor, a (tiny but very useful) viewfinder and large range of lenses. I carry with me everywhere a 12-24, 35-100 kit lenses plus 20mm f1.7 and 60mm f2.8 all in a think tank mirrorless mover 10. Just amazing. Yes it's considerably more expensive than the Pentax and no 4/3 is great in low light but I have zero regrets.
I only bought it as a fun companion camera for my Sony. It's great for sneaking into gigs coz no-one takes it seriously but it is very capable. The buttons fall to hand ok. It's easier to shoot with my right eye. I couldn't use it as my only camera though. Best suited to the smaller lenses. The GH3 is in another ballpark.
what a total waste of a vid post.... answering dumb questions from so called photographers about which should i buy, trade use etc. .... these questions are becoming more ridiculous by the day.... first and foremost, there is no such thing as "the perfect camera" it doesnt exist, every camera has its nuance, been that way since the beginning... secondly, most cameras now from ANY company in the 500+ dollar range will give you great results, dont let biased reviews sway you.... thirdly and most importantly, if you really want to get better at photography get your ass out in the real world and start taking photos, caring about what "brand" you use is strictly for noobs, period! .... if a camera appeals to you then buy it, yes its THAT simple... no camera is able to give you interesting subject matter and great composition, sadly, thats something you have to do....
honestly, i can't wait for DSLR's to die off. we're using digital sensors and modern display technologies can reach refresh rates of hundreds of htz; there's no reason for the prism & mirror to exist at this point; we no longer need it like you do for SLR's.
The a6000 is a great second camera to take around when you don't want to take ones large camera system with one. I have a Sony a99 and love it to death and prefer its size which is why I didn't get the A7R etc. I also got the a6000 and think its a brilliant second body. Seams the a6000 has becoming a very popular second camera for a lot of people.
You may have missed a few issues in the mirrorless discussion. While the camera bodies are smaller, the bigger difference is in lenses. Most mirrorless are APS-C (Fuji, Samsung) or tiny MFT sensors (Panasonic, Olympus). From a DOF or light aspect, their F2.8 lenses are equivalent to a full-frame F4. If you assembled a Canon or Nikon full frame set with only F4 zooms the weight goes way down. Among the mirrorless cameras only Sony has a full frame (the A7s) and it only has F4 zooms for them. Net: most of the weight is in the lens, especially when carrying more than one. As mentioned, the mirrorless cameras have smaller sensors. There is an immediate lost of DOF control, reduction in the amount of light and as a result more limited high ISO performance, and inability of nearly all lenses to keep up with the high pixel density. Starting from the last issue, film could resolve about 60 line pairs/mm at 50% MTF. and a full frame 24Mp camera (e.g. Nikon D610/D750, Canon 5DM3) are about 80 lp/mm, close enough. The D810 is about 100 lp/mm but because the low pass filter is gone can use the resolution for oversampling. 24Mp APS-C cameras are over 125lp/mm and the lenses can't do that. The lens is the limiting factor. Net: full frame usually takes a much better picture, simple physics. The senor size also shows up in light and DOF. For light, that can be a F-stop or two better. That means a lot in night photography and in action photography where a fast shutter speed is needed. The deeper DOF may or may not be an issue for an individual photographer...but it means the APS-C can't match a full-frame cameras blurred backgrounds. Also most manufacturers have pancake lenses for their DSLRs. This would let anyone make their DSLR a smaller package.
Yay I love your sonic shirt! :D also I was think about going vintage style from the using the Sony a3000 to the Pentax Q10 or Q7, I like using very old and very cheap vintage lenses, what do u think?
here are the problems with mirrorless -the mirrorless viewfinder is shining light millimeters from your eyeball straight onto your retina, the dangers of up close blue light damaging the retina is well documented, good luck after 10 years of using your mirrorless, your retina's dynamic range will be lower than a point and shoot -the mirrorless viewfinder will always have worse dynamic range than optical -mirrorless viewfinders suck in low light -the size argument is really stupid, crop DSLR weigh less than some Sony mirrorless, you're talking about 100 gram or less, if you put a tele on it, it's completely meaningless -mirrorless cameras actually unbalance when you put on tele, because of the slightly too low weight of the camera to counter it -mirrorless ergonomics are horrendous, no ergonomic hand grips -ISO performance of miorrorless is bad -most mirrorless have little to no weather sealing, good luck with the minor rain drop, go run inside -flange distance on mirrorless starts to hurt them at 85mm+, distortion -mirrorless aren't exactly flying off the shelves, they're selling badly, which means no good lens selection, and insecurity about it's future etc
Thanks Adriana K. I never heard of these risks involving the viewfinder. It is certainly something to consider before jumping into tech without knowing potential health effects.
I'm going to have to disagree on a few points with you Adriana. I've never heard anything about light from an electronic viewfinder damaging eyes. They've done some research showing that the blueish light from phones might disrupt sleep patterns but I've not heard about real damage. Could you cite some research on this? I'm interested in reading more. Some mirrorless viewfinders do slow down in low light but, at the same time, they do this because they're amplifying the light and making it easier for you to see what you're doing. It's a double-edge sword. The point about unbalancing the camera is partially true depending, of course, on the lens. The EF mount does a bit to lighten the lenses but lens size is certainly very dependent on the sensor size. Saying that the high ISO performance of mirrorless is bad is a bit of a over-generalization. After all, the Sony A7R is a mirrorless camera and it has the best high-ISO performance of any camera on the market right now. In my own personal research, I've found that ISO performance of mirrored vs mirrorless these days is very similar when comparing similar sensor sizes. That is, APS-C mirrorless and APC-C mirrored cameras seem to have pretty comparable ISO performance. If you're comparing an FX DSLR vs a 4/3 mirrorless then obviously the 4/3 is going to have worse high-ISO performance but really there you're comparing a full-frame vs a crop sensor and whether or not it has a mirror is irrelevant. I can't speak about flange distance hurting performance but I would ask for a reference. I can't personally think of any reason flange distance would hurt at higher focal lengths. After all, the entire reason for the longer flange distance in DSLRs is because of the room needed for the mirror. I can't dispute this but it doesn't seem logical. Perhaps I need to be educated. Now a bit of a disclaimer. I shoot a Pentax K3 -- mirror and all. I'd love to have one of the new mirrorless cameras out there but I wont be trading in my camera any time soon to get one. I used to have a Panasonic DMC-G2 (m43) that I was pretty fond of but it got stolen :-( Cheers!
Collin Douglas "More recent research considers the direct effect of this light on the eye, including the risk of ongoing damage to retinal cells.8 In the current study, the researchers wanted to accurately simulate exposure to indoor lighting, says corresponding author Chang-Ho Yang, a professor and ophthalmologist at National Taiwan University’s College of Medicine. He points out that earlier work shone light directly into the eyes of experimental animals. The retinas of rats exposed to either blue or cool white9 LED light showed evidence of retinal damage and cell death after 9 days of exposure. Yang says, neuronal cells are incapable of repairing themselves or regenerating after damage. This makes it important to pin down mechanisms of injury and link them with clinical studies matching the conditions under which people will ultimately be using LED." the discussion about this study, showing that rat's retina (of course they used rats, would be inhumane on humans) gets damaged from very close up blue light exposure from LED, was countered by ppl saying "but no one's retina is so close to blue LED light" true, but with viewfinders that is now different for many people, the retina is literally millimeers from the LED, which is bad
Adriana K. Interesting. Thanks for the information. I'll definitely have to do some more research on that. I wonder if, as a society, we've set ourselves up for some long-term eyesight issues with the prevalence of led backlit phones, tablets, laptops etc... I've always assumed that my eyesight was just getting worse with age (44 now) but the definite and noticeable downward trend sure seemed to start when I got my first smart phone... It's probably not related but it makes me wonder.
Adriana K. is the most biased and unfounded post I've seen in a long time. I have a few DSLR's, I've shot with a lot of them, as well as own a couple mirrorless cameras as well. • I haven't done any research on your first point so I won't comment on it. I do know that with mirrorless, you can choose whether to live view or not, what you see is exactly the same, you will not have your eye up to the viewfinder 100% of the time. • The optical viewfinder has only the dynamic range as the human eye, which is great, but your camera cannot capture that anyways, what's the use? Some cameras have an extended dynamic range feature that will give you more than the camera will output, it's only useful if you're trying to compose an HDR scene. Mirrorless viewfinders do not suck in low light, in fact, they offer an exposure boost which can help give you a major advantage. With an EVF, you see what you get, you can precompose and do color adjustments to your images before you even hit the shutter and know what you're going to get. Another MAJOR advantage is, you can preview your images and change all your settings through the viewfinder in bright sunlight. • You talk like the lenses are the same size you're used to, which they aren't the whole mirrorless system is smaller, way smaller, some cameras can be unbalanced, but I'm pretty sure the largest lens you can get for mirrorless is the newer Olympus 40-150mm f2.8 Pro. It fits perfectly on the camera it was designed for (Olympus E-M1), it has a FF equivalent focal distance of 80-300mm. • This umbrella statement about ergonomics is rediculous. There are a lot of mirrorless cameras out there that are very comfortable. • Most mirrorless cameras do not have weather sealing, but some do. Stupid argument, most mirrorless cameras are sub $1000, name some dslrs that are weather sealed for under that amount. The mirrorless cameras that are weather sealed will hold up in weather better than most dslrs, I put mine under a running faucet without any issues or any fear that it wouldn't work after. • ISO performance on mirrorless cameras is not as bad as it once used to be. Sensors are getting better, I can shoot at 6400ISO on the E-m1 if i need to and have well controlled noise. The quality gap is starting to get smaller. • I have no idea where you're getting your information on flange distance and distortion, distortion is lens based, if you're getting bad distortion, get a better lens. • There are more lenses available to mirrorless cameras than any other format. for instance, Micro Four Thirds cameras can use not only their own format, they can also take adapters to use just about any other lens available be it Canon or Nikon. Do your research, don't give misinformation. and nobody likes trolls. That said, the real downsides based on a m43 crop sensor, • Deeper field of view If you're going for a cropped sensor like the micro four thirds format, the crop sensor multiplies the focal length by 2, but it also multiplies the aperture... so if you had an 50mm F2 lens on a full frame camera, in order to reproduce that result, you'd have to use a 25mm F1 on a m43 camera • Resolution Most small sensor cameras have limited their resolution to 16MP, with an exception, the Olympus E-M5 mk2 has a feature where it does a sensor shift of 8 photos and creates a 40MP image. Depending on what you really want to do with your photos, this resolution is more than adequate, I have a 30"x 40" print in my living room of a scene I shot with my 12MP camera... Even if you are needing to crop, 16MP is enough for any practical purpose. Base your resolution needs off what you need. • Battery Life Where a lot of DSLR's can go 1000 images on a battery. all the electronics and screens really limit the battery life, On the E-m1, i get about 350-400 shots on a charge, but batteries are cheap, I've been picking up 3rd party batteries for about $15 ea. • ISO performance Yes, still a downside, where 6400ISO is still feasible, if you need any higher than that, the technology is not there yet. Images can still be usable at 12,800 for small prints if you can get it right in camera. • AF tracking Every test I've seen, Auto Focus tracking is not quite up to par with DSLRs For me the upsides outweigh the downsides, I love the size and flexibility, and love that you can do some of your editing on photos before you even take the images, time=money. Mirrorless make is easy to get it right in camera.
The olympus EM1 with 40-150 f/2.8 Pro is very light, Fuji is nice too with some frustrations. Generally mirrorless has gotten bigger lately reducing its advantage over a DSLR. Except with a small primes I have never seen any advantage in FF mirrorless like Sony A7 series.
Hey Right on I really appreciate you helping me with this discussion! I actually have made my mind up! After tons of research I will be keeping my D810. I took about 30-45mins playing with the A6000 at best buy and that's was enough for me to really want 11FPS! YES! The focus tracking was super cool! I will be getting a Fotodiox Pro adapter to connect my Nikon Glass later on. I would actually use this to shoot a wedding for the super fast fps to capture that instant reaction that maybe a d810 would miss! My d810 is my Landscape dream! But on the fly a6000 ftw! thanks so much!
I know a professional outdoors photographer who uses a Nikon D800 most of the time.When the Olympus OMD first came out he bought one and a couple lenses for it.He uses the Nikon when he isn't backpacking and the Olympus when he's packing everything.It saves about half the weight and space of the Nikon and makes excellent pictures.I use micro 4/3 because if fit my old back,my tight budget,and I didn't already have any autofocus SLR lenses.
Not knowing the lenses this Nikon shooter is using might shed some more light on the weight issue.
If he was also carrying 70 to 200mm f2.8 and 28 to 70mm f2.8 a 28mm and a 35mm that just might be too many lens.
I would go with prime lenses no more than two and frame your shots more carefully. That will cut down on weight considerably. BTW I use to make day hikes with my 4x5 view camera one lens 150mm f5.6 Fugion it wasn't that heavy.
Shot like you only had film; fewer shots careful composistion.
I only with I had a digital SLR on any kind...I am still in a film camera world..only a Panasonic GX-1, but I have the nikon adaptor for my lenses. Let me know if you want to dump that Nikon...ha ha.
Hey, Snapchich, when are you going back to being blonde again? Definitely suits you better, enlightens your face, makes it look a little bit less... austere -kind of "school teacher" like...more photogenic!
;-)
Hi snapchick I've been watching your videos for a while now and you never answer my questions but do you have anything where ask a question I need help , please reply :)
the nikon 1 camera now comes with the adapter to use nikon lenses. Not too shabby
do you plan on doing a review on the samsung nx1 mirror less? i haven't seen to many reviews on that camera
so many questions, so little time...good luck Snapchip hehe....great collection of vids, you have taught me quite a lot, thanks
Thanks for watching!
Hi snapchick, I like the larger cameras , because I have large hands , the smaller cameras ,I fill like I will drop it. I love the size of my Nikon D2X. IT my be an old camera but it takes great photos.
D2x is a great camera! I just sold mine after owning it since it was first released!
cool shirt!
Dsl for life.
You tricked me. I thought I was going to see the camera actually talk.
It DID talk, but just in a tiny whisper into my ear :)
I came very close to getting a QS1 as a pocketable companion to my A7. But then panasonic released the GM5.
What an amazing little camera. It's about the same body size as the Q but with a 4/3 sensor, a (tiny but very useful) viewfinder and large range of lenses.
I carry with me everywhere a 12-24, 35-100 kit lenses plus 20mm f1.7 and 60mm f2.8 all in a think tank mirrorless mover 10.
Just amazing.
Yes it's considerably more expensive than the Pentax and no 4/3 is great in low light but I have zero regrets.
I've been eyeballing that Panasonic myself. I just can't decide if I want something that small or if I'd rather pick up a used GH3.
I only bought it as a fun companion camera for my Sony. It's great for sneaking into gigs coz no-one takes it seriously but it is very capable. The buttons fall to hand ok. It's easier to shoot with my right eye. I couldn't use it as my only camera though. Best suited to the smaller lenses. The GH3 is in another ballpark.
I have a Pentax Q. It is indeed a wonderful camera.
I'm jealous!!!
what a total waste of a vid post.... answering dumb questions from so called photographers about which should i buy, trade use etc. .... these questions are becoming more ridiculous by the day.... first and foremost, there is no such thing as "the perfect camera" it doesnt exist, every camera has its nuance, been that way since the beginning... secondly, most cameras now from ANY company in the 500+ dollar range will give you great results, dont let biased reviews sway you.... thirdly and most importantly, if you really want to get better at photography get your ass out in the real world and start taking photos, caring about what "brand" you use is strictly for noobs, period! .... if a camera appeals to you then buy it, yes its THAT simple... no camera is able to give you interesting subject matter and great composition, sadly, thats something you have to do....
honestly, i can't wait for DSLR's to die off. we're using digital sensors and modern display technologies can reach refresh rates of hundreds of htz; there's no reason for the prism & mirror to exist at this point; we no longer need it like you do for SLR's.
The a6000 is a great second camera to take around when you don't want to take ones large camera system with one. I have a Sony a99 and love it to death and prefer its size which is why I didn't get the A7R etc. I also got the a6000 and think its a brilliant second body. Seams the a6000 has becoming a very popular second camera for a lot of people.
I have both the Sony A99 and A6000 too. I absolutely love both. I even use my Alpha mount lenses on my A6000 using the LA-EA2 adapter.
You may have missed a few issues in the mirrorless discussion.
While the camera bodies are smaller, the bigger difference is in lenses. Most mirrorless are APS-C (Fuji, Samsung) or tiny MFT sensors (Panasonic, Olympus). From a DOF or light aspect, their F2.8 lenses are equivalent to a full-frame F4. If you assembled a Canon or Nikon full frame set with only F4 zooms the weight goes way down. Among the mirrorless cameras only Sony has a full frame (the A7s) and it only has F4 zooms for them. Net: most of the weight is in the lens, especially when carrying more than one.
As mentioned, the mirrorless cameras have smaller sensors. There is an immediate lost of DOF control, reduction in the amount of light and as a result more limited high ISO performance, and inability of nearly all lenses to keep up with the high pixel density.
Starting from the last issue, film could resolve about 60 line pairs/mm at 50% MTF. and a full frame 24Mp camera (e.g. Nikon D610/D750, Canon 5DM3) are about 80 lp/mm, close enough. The D810 is about 100 lp/mm but because the low pass filter is gone can use the resolution for oversampling. 24Mp APS-C cameras are over 125lp/mm and the lenses can't do that. The lens is the limiting factor. Net: full frame usually takes a much better picture, simple physics.
The senor size also shows up in light and DOF. For light, that can be a F-stop or two better. That means a lot in night photography and in action photography where a fast shutter speed is needed. The deeper DOF may or may not be an issue for an individual photographer...but it means the APS-C can't match a full-frame cameras blurred backgrounds.
Also most manufacturers have pancake lenses for their DSLRs. This would let anyone make their DSLR a smaller package.
Yay I love your sonic shirt! :D also I was think about going vintage style from the using the Sony a3000 to the Pentax Q10 or Q7, I like using very old and very cheap vintage lenses, what do u think?
Black eyed Sonic forever.
here are the problems with mirrorless
-the mirrorless viewfinder is shining light millimeters from your eyeball straight onto your retina, the dangers of up close blue light damaging the retina is well documented, good luck after 10 years of using your mirrorless, your retina's dynamic range will be lower than a point and shoot
-the mirrorless viewfinder will always have worse dynamic range than optical
-mirrorless viewfinders suck in low light
-the size argument is really stupid, crop DSLR weigh less than some Sony mirrorless, you're talking about 100 gram or less, if you put a tele on it, it's completely meaningless
-mirrorless cameras actually unbalance when you put on tele, because of the slightly too low weight of the camera to counter it
-mirrorless ergonomics are horrendous, no ergonomic hand grips
-ISO performance of miorrorless is bad
-most mirrorless have little to no weather sealing, good luck with the minor rain drop, go run inside
-flange distance on mirrorless starts to hurt them at 85mm+, distortion
-mirrorless aren't exactly flying off the shelves, they're selling badly, which means no good lens selection, and insecurity about it's future
etc
Thanks Adriana K. I never heard of these risks involving the viewfinder. It is certainly something to consider before jumping into tech without knowing potential health effects.
I'm going to have to disagree on a few points with you Adriana.
I've never heard anything about light from an electronic viewfinder damaging eyes.
They've done some research showing that the blueish light from phones might disrupt sleep patterns but I've not heard about real damage.
Could you cite some research on this? I'm interested in reading more.
Some mirrorless viewfinders do slow down in low light but, at the same time, they do this because they're amplifying the light and making it easier for you to see what you're doing. It's a double-edge sword.
The point about unbalancing the camera is partially true depending, of course, on the lens. The EF mount does a bit to lighten the lenses but lens size is certainly very dependent on the sensor size.
Saying that the high ISO performance of mirrorless is bad is a bit of a over-generalization. After all, the Sony A7R is a mirrorless camera and it has the best high-ISO performance of any camera on the market right now.
In my own personal research, I've found that ISO performance of mirrored vs mirrorless these days is very similar when comparing similar sensor sizes. That is, APS-C mirrorless and APC-C mirrored cameras seem to have pretty comparable ISO performance. If you're comparing an FX DSLR vs a 4/3 mirrorless then obviously the 4/3 is going to have worse high-ISO performance but really there you're comparing a full-frame vs a crop sensor and whether or not it has a mirror is irrelevant.
I can't speak about flange distance hurting performance but I would ask for a reference. I can't personally think of any reason flange distance would hurt at higher focal lengths. After all, the entire reason for the longer flange distance in DSLRs is because of the room needed for the mirror. I can't dispute this but it doesn't seem logical. Perhaps I need to be educated.
Now a bit of a disclaimer. I shoot a Pentax K3 -- mirror and all. I'd love to have one of the new mirrorless cameras out there but I wont be trading in my camera any time soon to get one. I used to have a Panasonic DMC-G2 (m43) that I was pretty fond of but it got stolen :-(
Cheers!
Collin Douglas "More recent research considers the direct effect of this light on the eye, including the risk of ongoing damage to retinal cells.8 In the current study, the researchers wanted to accurately simulate exposure to indoor lighting, says corresponding author Chang-Ho Yang, a professor and ophthalmologist at National Taiwan University’s College of Medicine. He points out that earlier work shone light directly into the eyes of experimental animals.
The retinas of rats exposed to either blue or cool white9 LED light showed evidence of retinal damage and cell death after 9 days of exposure.
Yang says, neuronal cells are incapable of repairing themselves or regenerating after damage. This makes it important to pin down mechanisms of injury and link them with clinical studies matching the conditions under which people will ultimately be using LED."
the discussion about this study, showing that rat's retina (of course they used rats, would be inhumane on humans) gets damaged from very close up blue light exposure from LED, was countered by ppl saying
"but no one's retina is so close to blue LED light"
true, but with viewfinders that is now different for many people, the retina is literally millimeers from the LED, which is bad
Adriana K. Interesting. Thanks for the information. I'll definitely have to do some more research on that.
I wonder if, as a society, we've set ourselves up for some long-term eyesight issues with the prevalence of led backlit phones, tablets, laptops etc...
I've always assumed that my eyesight was just getting worse with age (44 now) but the definite and noticeable downward trend sure seemed to start when I got my first smart phone... It's probably not related but it makes me wonder.
Adriana K. is the most biased and unfounded post I've seen in a long time. I have a few DSLR's, I've shot with a lot of them, as well as own a couple mirrorless cameras as well.
• I haven't done any research on your first point so I won't comment on it. I do know that with mirrorless, you can choose whether to live view or not, what you see is exactly the same, you will not have your eye up to the viewfinder 100% of the time.
• The optical viewfinder has only the dynamic range as the human eye, which is great, but your camera cannot capture that anyways, what's the use? Some cameras have an extended dynamic range feature that will give you more than the camera will output, it's only useful if you're trying to compose an HDR scene. Mirrorless viewfinders do not suck in low light, in fact, they offer an exposure boost which can help give you a major advantage. With an EVF, you see what you get, you can precompose and do color adjustments to your images before you even hit the shutter and know what you're going to get. Another MAJOR advantage is, you can preview your images and change all your settings through the viewfinder in bright sunlight.
• You talk like the lenses are the same size you're used to, which they aren't the whole mirrorless system is smaller, way smaller, some cameras can be unbalanced, but I'm pretty sure the largest lens you can get for mirrorless is the newer Olympus 40-150mm f2.8 Pro. It fits perfectly on the camera it was designed for (Olympus E-M1), it has a FF equivalent focal distance of 80-300mm.
• This umbrella statement about ergonomics is rediculous. There are a lot of mirrorless cameras out there that are very comfortable.
• Most mirrorless cameras do not have weather sealing, but some do. Stupid argument, most mirrorless cameras are sub $1000, name some dslrs that are weather sealed for under that amount. The mirrorless cameras that are weather sealed will hold up in weather better than most dslrs, I put mine under a running faucet without any issues or any fear that it wouldn't work after.
• ISO performance on mirrorless cameras is not as bad as it once used to be. Sensors are getting better, I can shoot at 6400ISO on the E-m1 if i need to and have well controlled noise. The quality gap is starting to get smaller.
• I have no idea where you're getting your information on flange distance and distortion, distortion is lens based, if you're getting bad distortion, get a better lens.
• There are more lenses available to mirrorless cameras than any other format. for instance, Micro Four Thirds cameras can use not only their own format, they can also take adapters to use just about any other lens available be it Canon or Nikon.
Do your research, don't give misinformation. and nobody likes trolls.
That said, the real downsides based on a m43 crop sensor,
• Deeper field of view
If you're going for a cropped sensor like the micro four thirds format, the crop sensor multiplies the focal length by 2, but it also multiplies the aperture... so if you had an 50mm F2 lens on a full frame camera, in order to reproduce that result, you'd have to use a 25mm F1 on a m43 camera
• Resolution
Most small sensor cameras have limited their resolution to 16MP, with an exception, the Olympus E-M5 mk2 has a feature where it does a sensor shift of 8 photos and creates a 40MP image. Depending on what you really want to do with your photos, this resolution is more than adequate, I have a 30"x 40" print in my living room of a scene I shot with my 12MP camera... Even if you are needing to crop, 16MP is enough for any practical purpose. Base your resolution needs off what you need.
• Battery Life
Where a lot of DSLR's can go 1000 images on a battery. all the electronics and screens really limit the battery life, On the E-m1, i get about 350-400 shots on a charge, but batteries are cheap, I've been picking up 3rd party batteries for about $15 ea.
• ISO performance
Yes, still a downside, where 6400ISO is still feasible, if you need any higher than that, the technology is not there yet. Images can still be usable at 12,800 for small prints if you can get it right in camera.
• AF tracking
Every test I've seen, Auto Focus tracking is not quite up to par with DSLRs
For me the upsides outweigh the downsides, I love the size and flexibility, and love that you can do some of your editing on photos before you even take the images, time=money. Mirrorless make is easy to get it right in camera.