One thing disappointing about the new breed of full-frame mirrorless cameras is the enormous size of the lenses, which in most cases are not only more expensive but significantly larger than their D-SLR counterparts. After all, wasn’t mirrorless supposed to lead to lighter and smaller camera bodies and lenses?
There is indeed an explanation. The discussion that I had with a technical person from a leading manufacturer indicated that mirrorless lenses were now following the ‘German’ style of lens design whereby both the centre and the edges of the lenses were equally sharp. Earlier, more emphasis was given to the centre of the image. The end result is that a lens requires more elements to achieve that level of sharpness. For comparison, the 50 mm f/1.8 from Nikon for its mirrorless system has 12 elements. The D-SLR equivalent has only seven.
Nevertheless, I would like to urge the full-frame mirrorless brigade to go all out to make their lenses smaller and lighter. At times, ergonomics is more important than ultimate sharpness.
A new year dawns with this issue. All the best wishes to everyone.
H. S. Billimoria
