(Credit: Jim Fisher)
The latest mirrorless cameras are amazing. They deliver nearly everything photographers dreamed about during the DSLR era: excellent image quality in almost any lighting condition, blazing-fast burst shooting with highly reliable autofocus, and resolutions so high that most users will never fully need them. It's gotten to the point where you can use a camera that's four or five years old and not miss out on much.
That's also part of the problem. Modern camera releases often feel less like breakthroughs and more like refinements. New models are typically faster, sharper, and more capable than their predecessors—but not dramatically different. Most updates can be summed up as "the same, but faster, and with more pixels."
Don't get me wrong, you'll still see some upgrades between generations, but it tends to be more of the same from year to year. Take the Sony a7R VI, which I can't find much to complain about. Its Stacked CMOS sensor triples the Mark V's burst rate and gets smoother motion in video. I can also call out a few new niche features that impressed me in other recent releases, like the Canon EOS R5 Mark II's Action Priority autofocus system, which makes photographing team sports easier, and the Nikon Z 8's auto capture mode, which is really handy for capturing wildlife.
Still, it raises an interesting question: What's actually left to improve in mirrorless cameras? Personally, I'd rather see manufacturers focus on broader quality-of-life upgrades—features that improve the everyday shooting experience—rather than catering mainly to specialized use cases. Those are the kinds of innovations that could make the next generation of cameras truly exciting again.
1. Smarter Exposure Metering
Cameras have made huge gains in autofocus in recent years. Mirrorless cameras focus off the image sensor and leverage machine learning-trained focus systems to zero in on the faces and eyes of people, pets, birds, and even insects, making it far less challenging to get great shots versus SLRs—you don't have to make sure the focus box is over your subject's eyes with modern-day autofocus. There's not much room for autofocus systems to get better.
I'd like to see exposure metering get the same attention. Most mirrorless cameras still meter like an old SLR. They look at the average brightness of a scene and shoot based on an average illumination level with full-frame, center-weighted, and spot-target options. It's time for metering to get smarter. I'd like to see a camera with Subject Recognition Metering, a mode that would use the same training employed for focus to properly exposure identified subjects. Sony already has a version of this in its ZV vlogging cameras, which have a Face Priority mode for people that works in video mode, but it's time to expand it to more cameras and make it work for more subjects.
2. Smartphone-Worthy Displays
The rear LCDs on most mirrorless cameras are fine. Just fine. But fine pales in comparison to the outstanding screens used in smartphones. It's time for camera makers to increase the size of rear screens to improve visibility. I'd also like to see efforts to increase brightness and add anti-glare coatings to better match the fantastic smartphone displays to which we're all accustomed.
There are already a couple of examples of cameras with excellent rear displays. The Hasselblad X2D II 100C uses a 3.6-inch 1,400-nit OLED, and the Nikon ZR has a 4-inch, 1,000-nit LCD, but they are exceptions, not the rule. Still, they prove that this isn't an impossible request, and give hope that other camera makers will follow suit.
3. Simplified Menus and Better Setup Wizards
Interchangeable-lens cameras have more features than most of us will ever use, and are extremely configurable. The combination leads to long, dense menu systems with dozens of pages. I'm an expert in the field with years of experience using every major system, but even I still struggle to navigate through to find a specific function. Camera menus are even more daunting for creators just starting out.
I'm pretty sure that camera makers are aware that menus can be challenging to navigate, and most have already addressed the issue by adding configurable My Menu features and on-screen overlay menus so you don't have to dive into the full text menu to change certain settings.
To reduce the learning curve, I think cameras should include more intensive start-up wizards—instead of just asking you to set the date and time and connect with a smartphone app, they should also ask you to set the file formats for stills and video, adjust display preferences like grid lines and histograms, configure autofocus, and the like. And while we're at it, a search function would be handy to help you find that elusive menu setting that you know exists, but just can't find.
4. Universal DNG Support
There are a few cameras that use Adobe's DNG format for Raw capture, but the majority are proprietary. That means that early adopters are left waiting on software updates to get Raw editing support whenever a new camera comes out. Adobe is usually quick to push out updates to its Lightroom photo workflow software, but sometimes struggles to do so. For instance, the Sony a7 V came out in late 2025 and still only has preliminary support.
It'd be a lot easier all around to just use DNG in cameras as a rule. A handful of brands—Leica, Ricoh Pentax, and Sigma—already do this, but Canon, Nikon, Panasonic Lumix, and Sony don't. DNG has some big benefits for software compatibility, and while there may be some trade-offs in file sizes versus proprietary Raw formats with lossless compression, there's nothing stopping brands from adding it as an extra option, especially as many creators express frustration with Adobe's subscription pricing. Most open-source and perpetual-licensed image editing apps can load DNG files.
5. Built-in Storage as a Standard
There's no worse feeling than taking out your camera for a photo and seeing the dreaded "No memory card" message. It's easy to criticize a photog for not checking their gear before they leave the house, but everyone slips up from time to time. This would be easier to fulfill if we weren't in the midst of an AI-driven flash memory shortage, but I think camera makers would be wise to include some built-in memory in upmarket models.
A few luxury-grade cameras already have this; the Hasselblad X2D II 100C has 1TB, and the Ricoh GR IV includes 53GB, for example, but I'd like to see a more common feature in better-than-entry mirrorless cameras.
What's Your Biggest Digital Camera Pet Peeve?
So there you have it, after years of watching camera tech move forward, these are some pain points I'd like to see addressed. If you have any gripes of your own, please feel free to share them in the comments. I have no doubt there's something about cameras that qualifies as a pet peeve for another photographer. And if you're looking to upgrade your gear, make sure to check out our list of the top-rated mirrorless cameras.