[OM] Electronic ViewFinders

[Winsor Crosby]

On Thursday, November 6, 2003, at 01:33  AM, Moose wrote:

> Well of course they don't, there is a mirror in the way, and probably a mechanical shutter too. I'm talking future technology, where, as Julian says "Once you get there, you have a high res video camera,
> and all you're doing is choosing the frame to store." The way he says it somehow makes it sound like a bad thing, but it sounds like a good thing to me. The idea of a camera with TTL viewfinder (at least as good as current optical finders, or there is no point), but no size, cost, noise, vibration and weight burdens from mechanical shutter and mirror assemblies, pentaprism, screen, etc., sounds quite attractive to me.

I agree. I have a Coolpix 5700 with the same evf used by the Sony 717 and that Minolta Dimage 7HI. It is not pretty, but it works quite well. The view is better than the one in the outside LCD. It even does manual focus after a fashion. All it needs is more and finer pixels and it will be quite nice. What makes it super right now is how it helps the rest of the camera and being able to hand hold the camera at really low speeds and getting sharp pictures. No noise. Completely silent unless you opt for a quiet beep. No shutter or mirror or aperture jerk. You see exactly what the CCD sees. It is bright in low light. Given 3 or 4 more years of development and I think it will begin to replace the mirror and prisms of digital slrs, not just a better alternative to a poor optical tunnel viewfinder on a simpler camera.

Winsor
Long Beach, California
USA