Originally posted by Cannikin Imagine you have an open wooden door and a wall made out of the same material. You attack both with a sledgehammer. Which do you think is going to happen first, the surface of the wall and/or the door (the screen) suffers significant damage, or you rip the door off its hinges? The hinges (the articulating joint) are not the weak point, the surface (the glass screen) is. The fact that the door can move when hit, instead of just taking the impact makes it harder to break down at all, unless you hit it in a very specific configuration.
There is no circumstance I can imagine where an articulated screen would break off before the screen itself would have been destroyed, whether fixed or not, unless you hit the joint directly, or the screen has been fully extended and bent beyond its limits. Presumably all these paranoid people would never flip it out, so the joint is never directly exposed nor extended to its limits, and thus it is only subject to the same kind of impact a fixed screen would. Now which would have a better chance of survival of a direct impact, a fixed screen that just takes the kinetic energy, or a screen that has at least some potential to move out harm's way when pushed?
okay, Professor (and i say it without the slightest hint of sarcasm, btw), your logic is, as seems to be the norm, rock-solid. There's only one tiny problem: your starting assumption is wrong;
most people don't worry so much about destructive impact. The truth is most modern cameras (dslr and up, not "digicams") couldn't withstand an impact capable of _incidentally_ destroying the back lcd, and keep on going (without internal damage etc), most people don't actually expect a dslr to survive a 3 foot drop for instance (though i hear many will, surprisingly enough, survive), after all our beloved celulloid film has turned to glass. etc.
the problem is mostly perception, but not all perception:
- a hinged/articulated screen is mechanically more complex, hence more prone to mechanical failure (how many fixed panels have you seen fail to.. ahem.. stay fixed, as opposed to damaged/worn off hinges on a car door?); yes, it can be well built, i admit, but you can't help thinking that "all else being equal(...) the fixed design will be sturdier"
- a fixed (burried/built into the body) screen will not catch on things, cloathing, etc, this means it is unlikely to incurr any un-intentional shock, and it is also less likely to cause loosing grip on the whole camera and potentially causing the camera to take a flying start to the bottom of the valley. silly? paranoid? perhaps, but some people shoot in rather extreme conditions, and apart from equipment cost, the loss of a camera will basically spoil an entire trip (especially a photo trip)
- a hinged/articulated screen will have a mecahnically mobile connection to power it and feed it data. some can't help cringe at all the trouble they have seen with even semi-mobile electrical connections of any complexity.
- some people don't trust the ability of properly weather sealing an articulated screen. obviously, it won't be impossible, but it seems many manufacturers struggle to seal "monoblock" cameras (see the long range of "sort of kind of maybe sealed, in places" canon x0d). I'm even more disturbed by this than most people, because while i love pentax and am used to having proper sealing, i _know_ that most decent quality cameras these days are in fact effectively sealed to some extent (tight enough tollerances by design/manufacturing process), but when you put a hinged screen on them, you're inviting moisture not only to enter in new and previously in-accessible places inside the camera, but also invite water to "stay for tea" in "water trap" areas; of course this can be alleviated by very clever and careful design, but such design is even more expensive than proper weather sealing itself i reckon, and i am talking about non sealed cameras to begin with, that are designed to (officially) never be used in such conditions.
having said that, i agree the idea is good (i always loved the waist level finders on my medium format gear).
anyway, can they stop playing silly buggers already, and bring on the wireless remote screen (perhaps with an "eye mounted" finder system, using the excellent electronic finders in some mirorrless cameras today)? it is clearly possible, it's just a matter of wanting to do it. i see no reason not to do it, sounds like a killer third party accessory to me (especially as many cameras have hdmi outputs and such these days), and an even more killer "system gimmick" for any brand who comes with it first (because if done properly, with all needed overlays, etc, it might be not only worth getting it instead of the third party, but make the system on the whole more desireable); not to mention that, again if done properly and paired with proper remote control "bundled in", serious sports photographers would eat them up.
ahem, excuse me while i go and file a patent or two :P