[Clavius]

Also, of course, the idea expressed above, that using electronics for the finder is just unnecessary complication of "simple" OVFs is a bit odd, given the huge amount of complexity behind SLR viewfinders (pentaprism, super fast mirror, etc, etc).

You find passing a optical signal directly through a mirror&prism more complex then:
converting a optical signal to electronic, running it through loads of software - mostly not even controlled by the user - then converting it BACK to optical again by outputting it via a sh*tload of tiny flickering lights?

Personaly I have a very simple test for whether an EVF is "good enough": If I use it, and it feels like an OVF, I'm happy. EVFs a few years ago were almost universally crappy (and many still are), but recently they've started to become very good. The EVFs in the Nikon V1 and Sony A77, for instance are excellent, and are already hard to distinguish from OVFs in many circumstances.

You find the EVF of the V1 and the A77 excellent?! And hard to distinguish from OVF?! You must wear glasses of over and inch thick then? Or maybe you shoot only landscapes in bright daylight?
In both cameras anyone immediately sees that it's an EVF. And when you pan even just a tiny bit it immediately becomes extremely obvious that one is looking through an EVF.

[eddie1960]

You find passing a optical signal directly through a mirror&prism more complex then:
converting a optical signal to electronic, running it through loads of software - mostly not even controlled by the user - then converting it BACK to optical again by outputting it via a sh*tload of tiny flickering lights?



You find the EVF of the V1 and the A77 excellent?! And hard to distinguish from OVF?! You must wear glasses of over and inch thick then? Or maybe you shoot only landscapes in bright daylight?
In both cameras anyone immediately sees that it's an EVF. And when you pan even just a tiny bit it immediately becomes extremely obvious that one is looking through an EVF.

just go in a dimly lit sony store and pan on a staff member back by tvs it'll be pretty apparent

[Anvh]

Let's see -- how about if the EVF doesn't "flash on", but increases in luminosity over 1/2 second or so? Or how about a slight touch of the shutter turns the EVF on, and releasing finger pressure turns it back off? This kind of engineering isn't difficult; it's certainly less complicated than face-recognition warez.

But then it will take 1/2 second longer then it does now.
For the other one does that mean you will always need to half press he shutter so you can see something? doesn't sound that practical.
Its better then to have a button to turn on and off the EVF when you don't use it.... but well you might as well turn off and on the camera.

Anyway, would it be energy inefficient to just dim the EVF to like, 5% or 10%when not in use? I remember when I was a kid, I turned the TV on before I turned the lights, was half blind for like 2 or 3 seconds because of the sudden initial pop of the light

The EVF isn't the only thing that consumes power, the sensor and the processor that are working to provide the image for the EVF are also there.
Now they are also turned off to consume power, that's part of the delay you have now with those automatic EVF, they need to turn on everything not just the EVF.

[Anvh]

my bad i was thinking of the canon slt principle. so effectively you lose 1/3 stop to the mirror and have the image lag of EVf. boy best of both world

From what i remember they did market the first cameras of these kind to be very suited for "action" photography, go figure

[snogglethorpe]

You find passing a optical signal directly through a mirror&prism more complex then:
converting a optical signal to electronic, running it through loads of software - mostly not even controlled by the user - then converting it BACK to optical again by outputting it via a sh*tload of tiny flickering lights?

Er, the point is that the signal is already in digital form, and indeed a large part of the camera's expense has been getting it there. So using an EVF is taking advantage of that situation. And indeed, the mirror/etc on an SLR is complex (in practice, if not conception), expensive (which of course is why the OVFs on non-top-tier SLRs tend to be kind of cramped and dark), quite large, and somewhat fragile.

You find the EVF of the V1 and the A77 excellent?! And hard to distinguish from OVF?! You must wear glasses of over and inch thick then? Or maybe you shoot only landscapes in bright daylight?
In both cameras anyone immediately sees that it's an EVF. And when you pan even just a tiny bit it immediately becomes extremely obvious that one is looking through an EVF.

orrrrrr you're just engaging in a bit of hyperbole... and sure, these EVFs aren't perfect, but they are quite good (strobing effects from electronic displays etc, are one of their weak points, for instance, although that isn't something I'd generally care about in actual use), and offer a different set of tradeoffs from OVFs. On many mid-tier DSLRs, for instance, the OVF is kind of small and dark, whereas EVFs are much easier to make large and bright. Panning lag can be a problem with older EVFs, but I haven't noticed it to be an issue on current good EVFs (e.g. V1/A77 -- and yes, they are quite good).

Anyway, the beauty of it is that we don't need to agree. I have my standard for what I consider acceptable, and some current EVFs seem to meet it. You may have different standards/uses, and may disagree with me about certain models -- but EVFs have a lot of room to get better at acceptable cost (faster update speeds, higher resolution, etc), and as long as enough people agree with you, they will continue to get better....

[eddie1960]

From what i remember they did market the first cameras of these kind to be very suited for "action" photography, go figure

It was to allow faster frame rates at the time. but then traditional slr caught up and surpassed it quickly and it became a failed experiment. Certainly coupling the concept with EVF has validity, but then why not just eliminate he mirror (i know it's for the af metering system in this case). keeping a mirror in the body without the OVF benefit makes little sense to me