My four-year-old digital point-and-shoot is about to give up the ghost, and I need to replace it. However, the new breed of cameras seems to very rarely have optical viewfinders anymore! Is this a problem?
On my current camera (which admittedly is old), I can’t compose a shot on the LCD in bright sunlight, making the optical viewfinder essential for most outdoor pictures.
The store clerk assures me that the newest generation of screens are much brighter and eminently useful, even in bright sunlight, but of course that’s hard to determine in the bowels of a Best Buy store.
So, my question: is it true that the current crop of LCDs are usable in sunlight? Are some brands or models better than others? Or do I need to restrict my shopping to those few models that still retain the optical option?
Based on the cameras I own or have owned, you usually won’t have a problem in bright sunlight. They’re much better than my phone’s LCD. Sometimes it’s hard to tell if my phone is even switched on!
Canon still makes cameras with view finders and this is a useful feature for battery life as well as an easier way to take pictures. When I watch people trying to line up a shot with the back screen I just shake my head.
My Canon has an optical viewfinder but I don’t recall ever using it. I personally find it much easier to compose the photo with the LCD than the viewfinder. For all but the most prolific photographers, battery life isn’t really an issue with modern compact cameras (especially those with Lithium-Ion batteries).
One advantage of an optical viewfinder is that in low light/low shutter speed conditions, if you don’t have a tripod it is easier to hold the camera steady if it is pressed up against your face than holding it out away from your body.
Again just my personal preference, but in low-light conditions I find it best to use the LCD, and hold the camera steady by pressing my elbows firmly against my body.
In low-light situations, it depends. If there is a convenient ledge to rest the camera on, the LCD screen makes more sense (I used this technique last week to take pics of the Trevi Fountain at night). But for using ones body as a stabilizer, I prefer the optical-finder-to-the-face method.
The optical finder also makes it easier to compose pictures in tight quarters, since you can back up to a wall and hold the camera to your head, rather than out in front of your face.
Battery life is absolutely an issue. You can take many** times** the number of pictures by turning off the back display and that is an important feature if you’re on vacation taking lots of pictures. And while you enjoy “composing” a picture with the back screen it’s much more time consuming. I can take more pictures in the same amount of time using the viewfinder. If it was remotely better to use the back screen then that is how professional cameras would be set up.
You’re right about the LCD sucking up battery power, but that is an absolutely ridiculous thing to be snobbish about. As others have pointed out, there are many situations where the LCD is much more useful in composing shots than the viewfinder. When you are sticking your face against the camera, your view is entirely limited to what the camera sees. When you are using the LCD, you still have your full range of vision and can look around to get a sense for how to best compose a photo by adding or subtracting elements of the environment. If you do this via viewfinder, you either have to move your head or move the camera, which inevitably means you have to completely re-calibrate the shot.
At least on my Canon cameras with Li-Ion batteries, the battery lasts all day even if I’m on vacation taking lots of pictures with the LCD on. I’d recharge the battery every night anyway (as most people would, I imagine) so there’s no point in making the battery last longer. That’s what I meant by “it’s not an issue.”
Which camera is this? I don’t have mine at hand, but I don’t recall the shooting rate to be different when the LCD viewfinder is used. Either way it’s somewhat less than 1 frame per second, which seems average for compact cameras.
Most professionals use SLR cameras. The optical viewfinder of an SLR shows exactly what the sensor would capture. That’s a major advantage and a good reason to use an optical viewfinder. The optical viewfinder on a compact camera is not TTL, so it doesn’t have the same advantages. In fact, the LCD is better because that image is TTL.
Don’t read emotion into this, it was a fact that needed correcting.
I disagree. While people may like using the back display there is nothing photographically usefull about it except to take pictures of a crowd by holding it over your head. I don’t understand what you mean by re-calibrating the shot. I sort of get where you’re going about being aware of a larger picture but it’s still faster to hold the viewer to your eye because you aquire all 3 axis of composition faster.
Fair enough. My Nikon D70 will go 2 weeks without recharging and that makes a difference if I’m camping.
It’s the ability to acquire a picture looking through the lense versus using your hands.
You’re right and that would be important if you print directly to a printer. However, most cameras have more pixels than required for a sharp image so using a slightly wider angle allows you to capture everything you need and then crop it if the view finder isn’t perfect.
I don’t want this to be personal but in discussions of camera purchases I think the more information presented the better.
The bottom line is that dollar for dollar, the view finder is a very useful tool and buying a camera without one is a limiting factor.
Personally, I find it advantageous because looking at the LCD is closer to looking at the final product; it’s a flat rectangular picture. This makes it easier to judge how good the composition is. An optical viewfinder is like looking through a window; I’m less likely to pay attention to the relationship between the subject and the size and edges of the frame. It’s easy to miss the fact that the subject looks really small in the frame, or that his/her legs are cut off, etc.
I imagine that depends some on the camera but if you’re shooting in low-light (with flash, that is), you have the double whammy of draining the battery for the flash AND the LCD. My Canon P/S uses only 2 AA batts and if I’m in that situation I have to replace AAs after 40 or 50 pics because the flash recycle slows until it takes forever. If you’re at an indoor event, like a wedding or party, and your camera isn’t terribly efficient you may need to change batteries midway.
You’ll get some parallax error with a compact’s optical viewfinder (unless you’re spending big bucks on one), especially as you get close to the subject.
Olympus DSLRs actually have TTL images for both, which is why you have to toggle back and forth (only one accessible at a time). I was taking pics of stars one night with mine and chose to use the optical finder because in very low light, lots of noise shows up on the LCD and finding the stars in it was too difficult.
My Olympus P/S doesn’t have an optical viewfinder and unfortunately, it sucks batteries. It’s a proprietary batt that takes 5 hours to recharge (and a second battery would run $35 or so).
They help a little for blocking excess light but don’t expect miracles. They do protect the LCD from scratches and smudges if I’m using the optical finder, however.
OK, camping might be one of the rare cases where you want a multi-day battery life, and an optical viewfinder may be useful. Then again, you can probably choose a camera that uses AA batteries and carry a few sets of lithium AA batteries; that should get you through a couple weeks of camping even with LCD.
(By the way, the D70 doesn’t even have an LCD viewfinder, so it’s a somewhat misleading comparison.)
It’s not just about exact framing though. For close-up shots there’s noticeable parallax between the optical viewfinder and the captured image. You can also judge focus to some extent - at least you’ll notice if it’s way out of focus. And of course, the LCD on modern compact digital cameras display all sorts of other information, like which part of the frame the camera is focusing on.
No arguments that the back can be useful. All the digital camera’s have a back display. Not all of them have a viewfinder. Better to get one with a viewfinder. Best of both worlds kinda thing.