 Digital SLR camera - Mirror reflex
According to Kai: "The mirror reflex principle has been unchanged since the first SLR cameras appeared on the market in the early 1950's. Traditionally, the only alternative to a mirror reflex solution was an optical viewfinder (the correct term is "rangefinder"). It works fine on cameras with a fixed, non-interchangeable lens, even with a modest zoom lens. However, as it is positioned beside the lens, the image has a slightly different perspective and a less precise angle of view."
System camera reflex - Viewfinder
Kai continues: "In order to permit lenses with larger zoom range in a digital camera, manufacturers installed a new device called electronic viewfinder. Since the electronic viewfinder has the same kind of eyepiece as an SLR camera, showing exactly the same image as that being recorded, one could say that the electronic solution combines the advantages of the focusing screen in an SLR camera with the advantages of the LCD screen."
System camera without mirror - Concept
The part where Kai's mind thinking is starting to get interesting is the idea of building a system camera without any mirror at all. So let the electronic viewfinder serve as a kind of mirror as well as a view finder. Of course the EVF needs an upgrade in terms of resolution and refresh rate, etc., but the idea of developing such a camera does not need to be science fiction at all! To read the complete English article visit Kai Thon's DigIT.no and give him some feedback or share your thoughts!
About DigIT - Norway
A Norwegian imaging website with daily news of new product announcements, and also news about workshops concerning digital image-editing. Kai Thon, a Jack-of-all-trades in the world of digital imaging, started in 1999 with his website DigIT.no and publishes almost always in the Norwegian language. In spite of that the site is well worth mentioning because Kai Thon scrutinizes with regularity various cameras and publishes his results. Kai Thon operates from Sandefjord, Norway, but also travels around the world to discover the latest news. Kai also visits certain events, like the Photokina and the PMA. He publishes extensive reviews of these events.
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System camera without mirror : Our DIWA colleague and friend Kai Thon from the Norwegian website DigIT published an interesting article about the future of digital SLR cameras or more like the possibility of a new digital system camera concept. After reading the article from Kai I did remember a conversation with one of the engineers of a certain brand that is one of the players in the digital SLR camera market. He was just thinking loud and stated "why would we keep the concept of a SLR camera like it is now? We now have the change of changing the basic ideas of a system camera, so …". And indeed, the digital SLR camera today is more or less the same concept as an analogue camera some decades ago. 
