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What is a mirrorless camera? A mirrorless interchangeable-lens camera (MILC) or digital single lens mirrorless (DSLM) or a mirrorless camera is a photo camera featuring a single, removable lens and a digital display. The camera does not have a reflex mirror or optical viewfinder like a digital single-lens reflex (DSLR) camera. Many mirrorless cameras also retain a mechanical shutter. Like a DSLR, a mirrorless camera can accept any of a series of interchangeable lenses compatible with its lens mount.
Compared to DSLR cameras, however, a mirrorless camera is mechanically simpler and are typically smaller, lighter, and quieter due to the elimination of the moving mirror. While nearly all mirrorless cameras still have a mechanical shutter, many also have an electronic shutter, further making it completely silent.
Up until the mid 2010s mirrorless cameras were somewhat challenged in the prospect of providing an electronic viewfinder with the clarity and low-lag responsiveness to that of the optical viewfinders used on DSLRs, especially under extreme conditions like the strong sunlight or when photographing the sky at night. The fact that the image from the lens is always projected onto the image sensor allows for features that are only available in DSLRs when their mirror is locked up into "live view" mode. This includes the ability to show a focus-peaking display, zebra patterning, and face or eye tracking. Moreover, the electronic viewfinder can provide live depth of field preview, can show a poorly-illuminated subject how it would look with correct exposure in real time, and makes it easier to view the results of an exposure in bright sunlight.
But with the latest phase-detect autofocus available on some mirrorless cameras, the game is all about to change, with the autofocus speed and accuracy of some models has been shown to be as good as DSLRs. However compared with DSLRs, mirrorless cameras have shorter battery life which is attributed to the prolonged use of LCD and/or OLED displays, necessary for the viewfinder and also often smaller buffers (to save battery). On-sensor autofocus is free of the adjustment requirements of the indirect focusing system of the DSLR (which relies on a separate autofocus sensor located below the reflex mirror), and the latest mirrorless cameras can shoot with phase-detect autofocus at up to 20 frames per second using up to 693 focus point, which is by the way a number far exceeding what is available on any DSLR. However, on-sensor phase detection autofocus (except for Canon's Dual Pixel Autofocus) repurposes pixel sites for autofocus acquisition, meaning image data is partially or entirely missing for the autofocus "pixels". This can result in banding artefacts in the final image.
A full-frame mirrorless interchangeable-lens camera is a mirrorless interchangeable-lens camera with a digital sensor the same size as 35 mm format (36 mm × 24 mm) film. In comparison, full-frame digital SLRs also have interchangeable-lenses but differ in the fact they don't have a reflex mirror. Mirrorless interchangeable-lens cameras that have a smaller sensor than full-frame (such as APS-C and Micro Four Thirds) differ in having a crop factor. Digital cameras with a larger sensor than full-frame are called medium format, after medium format film cameras that use the 120 and 220 film formats.
Mirrorless camera might eventually replace the main stream camera provided the short comings of mirrorless camera are sorted out.
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