Shooting wildlife with mirrorless camera? It's complicated

A few months ago, I tried to ditch my Nikon DSLR camera in favour of a mirrorless camera. DSLR cameras are the ultimate tools when it comes to photography. They are versatile and powerful. But at the same time, they are also bulky and it is a pain to carry them. Mirrorless cameras claim to offer performance similar to DSLR cameras in a package that is lighter and easier to carry. Consequently, they are also more fun to use.

After using the Nikon D3100 and Sony's A6000 mirrorless cameras side-by-side, I felt that while I enjoyed Sony's camera to shoot streets, for wildlife I preferred the D3100 attached to a 300mm lens. One of the reasons why the A6000 didn't work was its average quality kit lens. Sony took the feedback, disagreed with what I had written and invited me to try out the A6000 with their telephoto lens to shoot wildlife in a forest reserve in Karnataka.

For mirrorless cameras, wildlife shooting is the final frontier. These cameras already excel at street photography. Cameras like Sony A7, which has a full frame image sensor inside its compact body, also do wonderfully well at landscape photography because of excellent dynamic range they can capture. But Wildlife photography is more about speed than the pure quality and that is where most people still prefer a DSLR camera over a mirrorless camera. With the photo expedition in the Karnataka -- which was incidentally guided by professional photographer Dheeraj Paul who runs Indian Photo Tours -- the idea was to take the A6000 out of its comfort zone and use it to shoot fast--moving animals and birds.

So, what were the results? They were mixed. A mirrorless camera like A6000 offers some significant advantages over conventional DSLR cameras, even while shooting wildlife. But in some cases, it also has a few disadvantages.

First the advantages. Initially, when the mirrorless cameras appeared -- like Sony's early NEX range of cameras -- their design was somewhat unbalanced and holding them while clicking images was little cumbersome. In comparison DSLR cameras, with their chunky grip and well-balanced bodies, offer better stability while shooting. But this has changed now. Cameras like A6000 and A7 have bodies that, despite their relatively small and compact size, are perfectly balanced. They fit well in hands. But some issues remain. Extremely large lenses, such as Sony 70-400mm that can be used with E mount of A6000 may make the camera a little unbalanced for many shooters. If you use this combo for a while, you may get used to it but compared to the balance that a similar DSLR kit provides, it is somewhat lacking.

You can check the image samples here- Image 1, Image 2, Image 3, Image 4, Image 5, Image 6, Image 7

The mirrorless cameras have an advantage in terms of pure technology. In particular, two stand out -- real-time exposure info and focus peeking.

In a DSLR camera, you can guess the exposure but whether the photo will come out dark or overexposed is something you get to know after you have clicked the image. Or you have to keep track of the exposure meter -- the dotted line that shows the extent of over or under exposure. But in a mirrorless camera, you get what you see. This means you get to see the actual exposure before you click the image. The reason for this is because DSLR cameras have optical view finder while mirrorless cameras have the electronic viewfinder and hence can show preview of the image that camera would process after you press the shutter release button.

The electronic viewfinder can also show overlay information like histogram, which can again help a shooter get the exposure right. On a DSLR camera, you can see histogram only after you have clicked the image.

Focus peaking is available in both high-end DSLR and mirrorless cameras. But if you want it in your viewfinder, only the mirrorless cameras can offer it because they use electronic view finder. This mode of focus, which is only available while using manual focus, can be of incredible help when you are shooting, for example, a tiger hidden in grass. In these situations, almost all cameras will struggle to focus on tiger because of the grass around him but with focus peeking, it is easy to bring the big cat into sharp focus.

The issue, however, is that for someone already familiar with DSLR cameras, using a mirrorless camera requires unlearning a few things and that can be uncomfortable. At the same time, even though cameras like the A6000 have become extremely good and fast at focussing, a DSLR camera with top notch phase-detect focus mechanism still tracks fast moving animals better.

As someone who is used to a DSLR camera, I found myself in an unfamiliar territory while shooting fast animals with A6000. The end result was that many of the photos that were clicked were out of focus and had metering issues. In comparison, the shots clicked with the D3100 were better.

The lens part too is still a weak point for mirrorless cameras, though Sony is aggressively ramping up availability of lenses for its E mount. During the wildlife shoot the A6000 was used with 70-200 F4 Sony lens, which is excellent in terms of optical quality. It is one fantastic lens but the reach it provides is not enough really shoot animals. Instead, Sony's 70-400, which can be used on E mount, is a better bet. But at the same time, the E mount ecosystem is missing lenses like Tamron's 150-600, which are available for Nikon and Canon cameras. In fact, it is also available Sony's A series cameras such as A99, which are not mirrorless, but not for the E mount.

In the last piece about the A6000, the verdict was that it is a fantastic camera for daily or street shooting but for wildlife or action it wasn't good. So has anything changed now? Yes and no. I would still not part with my D3100 for A6000, especially when it comes to shooting wildlife. But that is mostly because of my familiarity with the Nikon ecosystem.

Mirrorless cameras have come a long way and now the cameras like Sony A6000, Sony A7 and Fujifilm XT-1 are excellent solutions that rival the capabilities of DSLR cameras. On the long end of the zoom -- read telephoto -- the availability of lenses is still lacking somewhat but at other focal ranges, extremely high-quality lenses are available to users. If you are thinking of switching from a good DSLR system to a mirrorless camera, I wouldn't recommend it. But in case of you are hoping to get your first serious camera, go ahead and try a mirrorless first before you make up your mind. It is possible that you may end up liking the compact and light mirrorless camera more than the bulky DSLRs.

Disclaimer: Sony India paid for the writer's visit and stay in Nagarhole for the photography tour.

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