[Confused]

Hi Mike

Re your point:

We're raising a generation of people for whom the idea of a viewfinder on a camera is totally foreign.

With due respect, I've been using both 35mm SLR's & Medium Format film cameras for nigh on forty years, so I'm fully acquainted with viewfinders. I totally agree that for the most part, they are wonderful devices through which to compose photographs. However there are some occasional situations where an articulating LCD screen would be invaluable, such as photographing directly upwards at ceiling in a church or Cathedral for example. The actual procedure for framing & aligning the picture would be made a great deal easier in this instance via a moveable LCD screen on a DSLR, because I invariably select a manual exposure mode beforehand, simply setting the lens to infinity. I do not propose using the LCD for the purpose of critical focussing, because I've concluded that they are generally pretty hopeless in this respect.
However, I trust this is a valid point I'm trying to make here ?

Best regards
Richard

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Last edited by Confused; 02-11-2008 at 09:27 AM.

[JurassicWRX]

One time I have found live view helpful with a C**** point and shoot is looking over a crowd at an event. I could hold the camera above my head, frame the shot and take the picture. Try that with a viewfinder
also leaning over cliffs to shoot a waterfall around bushes (go the best shot of our group that had three DSLRS and I used my P&S instead of my K10D).
Other than that, give me a viewfinder... and I prefer optical not digital!
ave

[Mike Cash]

Richard,

I don't discount the utility of live-view in certain situations. I'm sure if I had it I'd find myself using it sometimes. I just don't care enough for it to pay the extra cost.

My point was that a great deal of the camera-buying public are nowhere near the camera/photography nuts that we are. They base their purchasing decisions on different factors. And since P&S cameras are largely going the LCD route, with no viewfinder, that is their default perception of what "normal" is for cameras. Hence any camera without it is perceived as lacking and less worthy of consideration. Pentax already has to fight the simplistic "higher price = better camera" thinking that leads some folks away from Pentax. They can hardly do with lacking what new arrivals to DSLRs are accustomed to taking for granted, live-view. That would just be one more factor driving people to other makes.

There's a generational technology shift going on that affects photography just as it does everything else. Remember, anyone under about the age of 35 will never understand why the music CD was such a big deal. Try explaining to anyone under 20 what life was like before cell phones and the internet. Think how many of our members got started in photography only after the advent of digital.

Camera companies have to take into consideration the needs and desires of the informed serious photographers when designing products, but they can not afford to overlook the less-informed and casual (or aspiring) shutterbugs who look for certain features to be there merely because "everybody else has it" or because it was what they took for granted in a P&S or bridge camera. Bringing them into the fold does us all good, because the extra sales volumes helps (to some degree) to keep prices under control and to make it feasible to bring the product to market in the first place.

Summation of all that is: We're going to have live-view entirely regardless of whether the dedicated serious users wanted it or not.

[garth1948]

You all have left out the one reason to use a viewfinder over an LCD screen -
The camera can be held much. much steadier when pressed to your face.

Garth

[aegisphan]

It's just another tool to help us in certain situation. Extremely low angle or over the head framing are the two situations I can think of for the use of liveview. However, I don't believe liveview would help me in confirming the focus (as advertised). The LCD is too low res for such a job. Thus, the current liveview of the K20D wouldn't be much useful to me. If it can swivel like some others, that would be another story.
This feature will, with no doubt, become the standard in the future. As for the extra cost coming with it, this is just the beginning of the integration. Extra cost would be unavoidable. For the next year or two, it wouldn't even be the bonus point for any camera, and the extra cost just vanishes from the equation.
Think about auto-focus, such luxury wouldn't come cheap back in the day. Was it really worth the extra cost back then?
Whether you want to use it is up to you.

[Ash]

If live-view was such an essential feature for pro photographers, it would've already existed on the Canon 1D by now.

So in my mind, the point about live-view being the way photo technology should go doesn't quite gel with me. Live-view slowed down continuous capture of the Canon 40D from over 3 fps to <1fps. I'm not sure the technology is available at this point to rival the TTL speed. How about a right-angle viewfinder to do the job to compose in awkward positions?

OK, so it's going to be on all the new dSLRs now - and yes one does have the choice of using the viewfinder or the LCD, however the beauty, and what sets dSLRs apart from the competition, is the swift response - negligible shutter lag and rapid sequence shooting.

[AVANT]

It's just another tool to help us in certain situation. Extremely low angle or over the head framing are the two situations I can think of for the use of liveview.

That would be my main purpose as well. Hand holding at low angles and over the head shots. Right now, it's a guess and check for me via digital preview or take a shot and review it.

If live-view was such an essential feature for pro photographers, it would've already existed on the Canon 1D by now.

I don't agree with this at all. This is a part of innovation. I don't see how a current top of the line camera should be the the limit for all future innovation. I certainly don't see canon implementing only "essential" features. 21.1 Megapixel essential? I think not. It's just a nice luxury.

[Confused]

Hi again Mike

Re your comment:

My point was that a great deal of the camera-buying public are nowhere near the camera/photography nuts that we are.

That is very true, but the reasons why some people choose Point & Shoots as opposed to DSLR's are often complex and varied in their nature. There's no denying that DSLR's are considerably more expensive than typical P&S, but unfortunately not everyone has the financial resources at their disposal to afford one. Secondly you can't exactly pop an SLR easily into your top-pocket in the same manner as a compact P&S, but I totally agree with you in deploring the latest manufacturing trend of omitting the optical viewfinder from these cameras. Apart from the added costs involved in implementing 'live-view' technology on the K20D, I would personally prefer an articulating (but weatherproofed) LCD, such as the one found on the latest Olympus E3....
just my $0.2 cents !

Best regards
Richard

[stanjo]

Can someone, please, explain the connection between live view and electronic shutter.
My understanding is that if you have live-view, you have electronic shutter.

And isn't electronic shutter better than curtain shutter? No flash-sync speed limit comes to mind.
Any measly P&S built-in flash does a better job at HS fill than my Pentax 360 flash, because it doesn't have to deal with the deficiencies of a curtain shutter.

[TourDeForce]

The only reason I can think to use live view is when you have to hold the camera over/around an obstruction to get a shot, in a crowd for example. You see that all the time on the presidential campaign news highlights or at sporting events & such. Maybe for macro shots to make sure you get the detail you want...

Having learned on a K1000 and used it for so many years, I wouldn't buy a P&S without a viewfinder & even with a live-view screen available, I never use it. Viewfinders from my frame of reference are just too fast and too accurate to even compare with live-view. Oh, the shots I would have missed trying to stablize & center a jumpy screen...

[Lowell Goudge]

having looked at all the posts, there are really 3 points of view here.

1) Many feel Marketing is being pushed by the P&S crowd who want a bigger and better P&S

2) MAny think it is a waste of time due to the limitations of the display (viewed at angles), unless it swivells, or in thier eyesight. I suffer from the same thing, as does any one who wears glasses for distance and is over 40 you need one perscription for distance and a different weaker one to view the screen.

3) Many thnk there may be situational uses for it, but most of those would be easily suited with a right angle finder

In the end, it will be thrust upon us like it or not..

[nosnoop]

Can someone, please, explain the connection between live view and electronic shutter.
My understanding is that if you have live-view, you have electronic shutter.

No, not really. K20D doesn't have it.
There are certainly design requirement for implementation of electronic shutters. For example, many CCD/CMOS sensors are of interlace design, and they need mechanical shutter for still image.

[nosnoop]

I wonder how much cheaper the K20D would be if Live View had been left out?

$0
There is no extra hardware cost in K20D's implementation.

[nosnoop]

There are other advantages for a full implementation of Live View apart from macro and awkward angle shots. This does not apply for Sony's two sensors approach which negates all the advantages of main sensor live view.

• 100% coverage (how many of you have been demanding 100% viewfinder?)
• Live histogram (very useful)
• White balance preview (no more wrong WB because you forgot to change back the settings.)
• Exposure preview (simulate exposed shot)
• Perfect focus (for critical manual focusing - no mirror/focus screen alignment error etc) - WYSIWYG for real!
• Prerequisite for video mode (I know most of you don't care, but this will be the next big feature after Live View for consumer market - still we would all benefit from the potential implementation of electronic shutters as required in video mode. Imagine no more flash sync restriction - yes, X-sync all the way to 1/4000 or 1/8000s without HSS).
• display previous frames for panoramic alignment etc

[Lowell Goudge]

There are other advantages for a full implementation of Live View apart from macro and awkward angle shots. This does not apply for Sony's two sensors approach which negates all the advantages of main sensor live view.

let's review these one by one

100% coverage (how many of you have been demanding 100% viewfinder?)

not as many as you think. Mount a print and cover some of the too tightly corpped image and you will understand why it is still desireable

Live histogram (very useful)

really, what is the difference between having the exposure set differently due to a change in lighting, before shooting, and getting it wrong afterwords. also in many cases the histogram can't resolve high contrast situations.

White balance preview (no more wrong WB because you forgot to change back the settings.)

if you have a K10D you can do this with the last shot you took, so the benefit already exists

Exposure preview (simulate exposed shot)

I think this already exists and if you do a preview what is the difference between this and just taking the shot anyway electrons are free.

Perfect focus (for critical manual focusing - no mirror/focus screen alignment error etc) - WYSIWYG for real!

no, the monitor is not good enough for that, never will be IMHO

Prerequisite for video mode (I know most of you don't care, but this will be the next big feature after Live View for consumer market - still we would all benefit from the potential implementation of electronic shutters as required in video mode. Imagine no more flash sync restriction - yes, X-sync all the way to 1/4000 or 1/8000s without HSS).

your right, I don't care

display previous frames for panoramic alignment etc

unless you can record specific allignment markers in the image information, I don't see any benefit. You will always overlap and adjust when stitching.

In the end, live view is simply a marketing ploy to make people "think" they are getting an easier to use camera. The fact is, that in hand held situations, the lens and camera are more stable against your eye, then extended at arm's length so you can see the screen with your decaying eyesight. Also the view finder approach forces you to concentrate on the ssubject in the lens, and has all of your attention, live view does not achieve this,