The difference between a dslr and a mirrorless camera,which is better and why?
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A dslr has a shutter that opens and allows light to come in, bounce off a mirror, and be registered on a sensor. Exactly the same as a film camera but the film is replaces by a sensor.
A mirrorless camera just has a sensor that is electronically turned on and off.
They both have good and bad points so which is “better” is subjective and contextual.
The upside of a DSLR is that when you look into the viewfinder you still see the “real” picture instead of an electronic screen. It also uses a bit less energy because of that (I think). The downside is more mechanics (the mirror) and thus a bigger comparative body size.
Which system is better is more to personal preferences than absolute objective criteria.
The DSLR came first, back when film was the normal thing to use. To take a photograph, you want to see what’s the result going to be like. So a [DSLR has a mirror](http://www.pixelrajeev.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/08/DSLR-Construction2.jpg) sitting just in front of the frame. When the mirror is down it reflects the image into the viewfinder. When you take a picture, the mirror is pulled up, and the same image goes on the film.
The downside of a DSLR is that you need a mirror. It takes space, it takes time to move it, it has weight, and it causes a small amount of vibration when it moves.
That it takes space imposes some restrictions on the optics of the camera — you can’t put a lens right against the sensor because the mirror is there, and this makes constructing good wide angle lenses more difficult.
Today it’s fair to say that DSLRs are obsolete, and mirrorless is the technically superior way to go forward. It’s a system originally made for film cameras, and persisted because using the sensor for preview worked less than ideally at the start. Good screens cost money, and electronic viewfinders were very bad at the beginning. These days that’s been fixed and now a mirror is more of a technical impediment.
DSLRs still get better battery life because the mirror in the down position doesn’t use any power, so you can look through the viewfinder all day if you like. But you can always get more batteries, and still have a lighter, smaller camera.
Both take pictures with a digital sensor and image quality is equivalent. The difference is when composing the picture:
In a mirrorless camera, you are looking at an electronic screen.
In a DSLR, you are looking directly through the lens (with that mirror.)
Because the electronic screens didn’t have enough resolution in the past, DSLR cameras gave better control over focus. With DSLR there is also often also an option to temporary reduce/increase the shutter to the same F-stop (size) as when taking the picture so you really can see the effect it will have before actually take a picture.
Off course DSLR also has drawbacks. (weight, fragility, vibration, size, always distance between sensor and lens to allow mirror, …)
As electronic screens become better and better, this main disadvantage becomes less and less important.
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