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> I'd personally rather have an optical viewfinder than all of those features, impressive as they are. Why? OVF doesn't show you what your picture is going to

> I'd personally rather have an optical viewfinder than all of those features, impressive as they are. Why? OVF doesn't show you what your picture is going to look like. You have to move from the viewfinder to look at the LCD to check exposure then go back to the viewfinder, repeatedly. EVF shows you exactly what your picture going to look like.

foldr 10y ago
>Why? Uses less battery and works much better in low light. >You have to move from the viewfinder to look at the LCD to check exposure then go back to the viewfinder, repeatedly. If I want to check the histogram then I shoot with the mirror locked up, but modern DSLRs have very reliable autoexposure systems, in my experience at least. >EVF shows you exactly what your picture going to look like. It shows you what it will look like on a small screen with low dynamic range. You have to look at the histogram to see if you're losing shadow/highlight information.
- azhenley 10y ago
  > It shows you what it will look like on a small screen with low dynamic range. You have to look at the histogram to see if you're losing shadow/highlight information. EVF shows me the histogram (can toggle it on and off without moving my eye).
  - foldr 10y ago
    That's cool. However, there's no fundamental reason why a DSLR viewfinder couldn't show a histogram too. It's not an important feature for me personally, but YMMV.
    - dragonwriter 10y ago
      > However, there's no fundamental reason why a DSLR viewfinder couldn't show a histogram too. You'd need to have to reduce the optical image size to make room for an LCD display, have a HUD to overlay a digital image over the OVF optical image, or have another moving mirror and toggle between EVF and OVF to do that on a DSLR. Which is to stay that an in-viewfinder histogram is possible but not easy for a DSLR.
      - foldr 10y ago
        Yeah, I was assuming it would be accomplished via a HUD. The technology is already used in other consumer products: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/See-through_display https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/See-through_display "Small scale see-though LCDs have been commercially available for some time."
        ricardobeat 10y ago
        And available in which cameras? Not even sure what you are arguing here...
        foldr 10y ago
        Just that this feature could be added to DSLRs, so it's not inherently an advantage of mirrorless cameras. Of course if you already have an EVF there is no additional cost associated with providing the histogram overlay. But if everyone starts demanding in-viewfinder histograms, DSLR manufacturers could add that feature.
- ghostly_s 10y ago
  >You have to look at the histogram to see if you're losing shadow/highlight information. Sure...which you only get on an LCD. IMO the only dealbreakers with EVFs are refresh rate, battery consumption and color gamut. If I were a camera maker, I would not be banking on any of those not being solved problems in the next five years.
  - foldr 10y ago
    I think it's pretty optimistic to think that the battery life issues will be solved in the next five years. It doesn't look like we're going to be getting significantly more energy dense batteries or lower energy display technologies in that timeframe. (Not in consumer products, anyway.)
    - mikeyouse 10y ago
      On the launch live stream, one of the commentators said that he used the a9 all day, took 2,200 pictures with autofocus, and still had 40% battery life remaining -- This is approaching 'solved' for the majority of camera users. I've got an older mirrorless with a subpar battery so I'm definitely sympathetic to the issues but anything over a few thousand pictures is good enough.
    - dkrich 10y ago
      I don't think battery use is a real important issue simply because the cost of batteries is so low. I was able to buy two extras for my a6000 for about $19.
dragonwriter 10y ago
> OVF doesn't show you what your picture is going to look like. It's more accurate in many respects, and lower latency, than current EVFs. > EVF shows you exactly what your picture going to look like. An idealized EVF with perfect quality and a resolution equal to that of the sensor would do that, sure. But real EVFs don't.
- _ph_ 10y ago
  Name one aspect in which OVFs are more accurate. Many of them are not even exactly 100% of the sensor image, and they do not give any preview of what the actual image is going to be. EVFs give a pretty good perception of the image. They especially give you a good preview of the exposure. With the latest generation of EVFs, as this Sony camera has, their lag is actually lower than the one of an optical viewfinder. The OVF by itself has of course no lag, but when you press the shutter, the mirror has to swing away before you can take a picture. A mirrorless camera can instantly capture a picture, effectively having the smaller time differential between the VF and the picture taken.

foldr 10y ago

>Why? Uses less battery and works much better in low light. >You have to move from the viewfinder to look at the LCD to check exposure then go back to the viewfinder, repeatedly. If I want to check the histogram then I shoot with the mirror locked up, but modern DSLRs have very reliable autoexposure systems, in my experience at least. >EVF shows you exactly what your picture going to look like. It shows you what it will look like on a small screen with low dynamic range. You have to look at the histogram to see if you're losing shadow/highlight information.

azhenley 10y ago
> It shows you what it will look like on a small screen with low dynamic range. You have to look at the histogram to see if you're losing shadow/highlight information. EVF shows me the histogram (can toggle it on and off without moving my eye).
- foldr 10y ago
  That's cool. However, there's no fundamental reason why a DSLR viewfinder couldn't show a histogram too. It's not an important feature for me personally, but YMMV.
  - dragonwriter 10y ago
    > However, there's no fundamental reason why a DSLR viewfinder couldn't show a histogram too. You'd need to have to reduce the optical image size to make room for an LCD display, have a HUD to overlay a digital image over the OVF optical image, or have another moving mirror and toggle between EVF and OVF to do that on a DSLR. Which is to stay that an in-viewfinder histogram is possible but not easy for a DSLR.
    - foldr 10y ago
      Yeah, I was assuming it would be accomplished via a HUD. The technology is already used in other consumer products: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/See-through_display https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/See-through_display "Small scale see-though LCDs have been commercially available for some time."
      - ricardobeat 10y ago
        And available in which cameras? Not even sure what you are arguing here...
        foldr 10y ago
        Just that this feature could be added to DSLRs, so it's not inherently an advantage of mirrorless cameras. Of course if you already have an EVF there is no additional cost associated with providing the histogram overlay. But if everyone starts demanding in-viewfinder histograms, DSLR manufacturers could add that feature.
ghostly_s 10y ago
>You have to look at the histogram to see if you're losing shadow/highlight information. Sure...which you only get on an LCD. IMO the only dealbreakers with EVFs are refresh rate, battery consumption and color gamut. If I were a camera maker, I would not be banking on any of those not being solved problems in the next five years.
- foldr 10y ago
  I think it's pretty optimistic to think that the battery life issues will be solved in the next five years. It doesn't look like we're going to be getting significantly more energy dense batteries or lower energy display technologies in that timeframe. (Not in consumer products, anyway.)
  - mikeyouse 10y ago
    On the launch live stream, one of the commentators said that he used the a9 all day, took 2,200 pictures with autofocus, and still had 40% battery life remaining -- This is approaching 'solved' for the majority of camera users. I've got an older mirrorless with a subpar battery so I'm definitely sympathetic to the issues but anything over a few thousand pictures is good enough.
  - dkrich 10y ago
    I don't think battery use is a real important issue simply because the cost of batteries is so low. I was able to buy two extras for my a6000 for about $19.

dragonwriter 10y ago

> OVF doesn't show you what your picture is going to look like. It's more accurate in many respects, and lower latency, than current EVFs. > EVF shows you exactly what your picture going to look like. An idealized EVF with perfect quality and a resolution equal to that of the sensor would do that, sure. But real EVFs don't.

_ph_ 10y ago
Name one aspect in which OVFs are more accurate. Many of them are not even exactly 100% of the sensor image, and they do not give any preview of what the actual image is going to be. EVFs give a pretty good perception of the image. They especially give you a good preview of the exposure. With the latest generation of EVFs, as this Sony camera has, their lag is actually lower than the one of an optical viewfinder. The OVF by itself has of course no lag, but when you press the shutter, the mirror has to swing away before you can take a picture. A mirrorless camera can instantly capture a picture, effectively having the smaller time differential between the VF and the picture taken.