«

"tomm42" <> wrote in message
news:63f7c9ca-377d-41ea-917a-...
> On May 22, 5:22 am, Alfred Molon <alfred_mo...@yahoo.com> wrote:
>> In article <U49Zj.7488$DZ6.6...@text.news.virginmedia.com>, David J
>> Taylor says...
>>
>> > Yes, if you pay more you may get a better viewfinder, but even that of
>> > the
>> > Nikon D40 is eminently usable. Try looking through the viewfinders for
>> > yourself.
>>
>> I remember briefly using a couple of years ago a Nikon D70. And wow,
>> what a viewfinder.
>> Recently I checked instead the Sony 350 and the Pentax K20D and was very
>> unimpressed. It's good that these two cameras come with live preview, so
>> you can use that for framing.
>> --
>>
>> Alfred Molon
>> ------------------------------
>> Olympus 50X0, 8080, E3X0, E4X0, E5X0 and E3 forum
>> athttp://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/MyOlympus/http://myolympus.org/photo
>> sharing site
>

I have a D70, and the viewfinder is its worst feature.

It is like looking down a tunnel, but eventually your brain gets used to it,
and it then seems Ok.

UNTIL you look through the VF on a more recent model, and then its back to -
"I need a new Camera"

Roy G

"Jeff R." <> wrote in message
news:483668f4$0$13943$ u...
>
> "Blinky the Shark" <> wrote in message
> news ynet.net...
>> dosferatu wrote:
>>
>>>
>>> "m II" <> wrote in message
>>> news:NofZj.4356$KB3.4278@edtnps91...
>>>> Jeff R. wrote:
>>>>
>>>>> Apologies.
>>>>> I was being deliberately obtuse.
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> Obtuse? Wouldn't that depend on the angle of the 'reflex' ?
>>>
>>> that's acute answer.
>>
>> Right!
>
>
> Oh please. I am not used to this degree of abuse.

It's a sine of what this newsgroup has become.



--
Pat Lundrigan
http://dandyfunk.typepad.com/

"dosferatu" <> wrote in message
news:...
>
> "Jeff R." <> wrote in message
> news:483668f4$0$13943$ u...
>>
>> "Blinky the Shark" <> wrote in message
>> news ynet.net...
>>> dosferatu wrote:
>>>
>>>>
>>>> "m II" <> wrote in message
>>>> news:NofZj.4356$KB3.4278@edtnps91...
>>>>> Jeff R. wrote:
>>>>>
>>>>>> Apologies.
>>>>>> I was being deliberately obtuse.
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> Obtuse? Wouldn't that depend on the angle of the 'reflex' ?
>>>>
>>>> that's acute answer.
>>>
>>> Right!
>>
>>
>> Oh please. I am not used to this degree of abuse.
>
> It's a sine of what this newsgroup has become.
>

Just cos we have to, I guess.

--
Jeff R.

wrote:
> On Thu, 22 May 2008 16:56:30 GMT, in rec.photo.digital "David J
> Taylor" <david->
> wrote:
>
>> The gain-up feature of the electronic viewfinder makes the viewfinder
>> image brighter than the original scene under dark conditions, and
>> this can aid basic composition.
>
> Sorry, wan't thinking along those terms even though this thread is
> about viewfinders. I wasn't really impressed with my CP-5700 overall
> and have quickly forgotten any of it's pluses given all it's minuses
> as a system upgrading from a CP-990.

OK, I appreciate there was a confusion.

I moved on from the Nikon 5700 to a Panasonic FZ5 and was very pleased
with it, but now in low-light I am better equipped with my DSLR, even if I
can't see what I'm taking as well!

Cheers,
David

In article <>, Alfred Molon
<> writes
>In article <g11n97$f90$>, Steve B says...
>>
>> > What is Depth of field preview ?
>> >
>> Press the DOF preview button and the aperture goes from wide open, as used
>> for focusing and framing the shot, to your selected aperture. The VF will
>> now 'preview' what's really in focus/not in focus at that aperture and focal
>> length. The main problem is that it will get dark in the VF at small
>> apertures.
>
>Oops... and there are DSLRs which cannot do this?

Actually, most dSLRs on the market today cannot do this, at least they
cannot do it with any accuracy, unlike the SLRs of old.

> I thought it's a basic
>feature of DSLRs that they will show you in the viewfinder what is in
>focus and what is not in focus. How else otherwise could you creatively
>compose the shot by choosing the right amount of background blur?
>
That is/was the basic principle. However, to get an accurate view of
what is in and out of focus at the shooting aperture you need to have a
highly diffusing screen - a coarse ground glass screen. The downside of
that is that the viewfinder image is very dark, because light from the
lens is scattered pretty much uniformly in all directions and only a
small proportion of that reaches the eyepiece. Without a ground glass
screen, all of the light reaches the eyepiece, at least within a certain
field of view of the image, resulting in a bright image but now
everything appears in focus. SLR viewfinder design has always been a
compromise between the two conflicting requirements of a bright image
and accurate DoF preview. There is only so much light that comes
through the lens, and it can't do everything.

In the old days (pre-1990), the tradeoff was made towards the accurate
DoF representation. However, since AF became more common on SLRs, the
tradeoff has shifted towards the brighter image, because the viewfinder
is no longer used for focussing. As a consequence of the demand for
brighter SLR viewfinders, DoF preview accuracy has reduced, to the point
where it is very misleading these days in almost all SLRs, and pretty
useless in many. The actual DoF is always much less than appears in the
viewfinder with modern cameras - unless they have interchangeable focus
screens and one is available that has been optimised for manual focus.


--
Kennedy
Yes, Socrates himself is particularly missed;
A lovely little thinker, but a bugger when he's ****ed.
Python Philosophers (replace 'nospam' with 'kennedym' when replying)

"Jeff R." <> wrote in message
news:4836af2d$0$17509$ u...
>
> "dosferatu" <> wrote in message
> news:...
>>
>> "Jeff R." <> wrote in message
>> news:483668f4$0$13943$ u...
>>>
>>> "Blinky the Shark" <> wrote in message
>>> news ynet.net...
>>>> dosferatu wrote:
>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> "m II" <> wrote in message
>>>>> news:NofZj.4356$KB3.4278@edtnps91...
>>>>>> Jeff R. wrote:
>>>>>>
>>>>>>> Apologies.
>>>>>>> I was being deliberately obtuse.
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Obtuse? Wouldn't that depend on the angle of the 'reflex' ?
>>>>>
>>>>> that's acute answer.
>>>>
>>>> Right!
>>>
>>>
>>> Oh please. I am not used to this degree of abuse.
>>
>> It's a sine of what this newsgroup has become.
>>
>
> Just cos we have to, I guess.

Now you're off on a tangent.


--
Pat Lundrigan
http://dandyfunk.typepad.com/

Jeff R. wrote:

>
> "dosferatu" <> wrote in message
> news:...
>>
>> "Jeff R." <> wrote in message
>> news:483668f4$0$13943$ u...
>>>
>>> "Blinky the Shark" <> wrote in message
>>> news ynet.net...
>>>> dosferatu wrote:
>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> "m II" <> wrote in message
>>>>> news:NofZj.4356$KB3.4278@edtnps91...
>>>>>> Jeff R. wrote:
>>>>>>
>>>>>>> Apologies.
>>>>>>> I was being deliberately obtuse.
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Obtuse? Wouldn't that depend on the angle of the 'reflex' ?
>>>>>
>>>>> that's acute answer.
>>>>
>>>> Right!
>>>
>>>
>>> Oh please. I am not used to this degree of abuse.
>>
>> It's a sine of what this newsgroup has become.
>>
>
> Just cos we have to, I guess.

I knew someone would go off on this tangent.

--
Blinky
Killing all posts from Google Groups
The Usenet Improvement Project: http://improve-usenet.org
NEW --> Now evaluating a GG-free news feed: http://usenet4all.se

In article <>, Alfred Molon
<> writes
>In article <>, Kennedy McEwen
>says...
>
>> In the old days (pre-1990), the tradeoff was made towards the accurate
>> DoF representation. However, since AF became more common on SLRs, the
>> tradeoff has shifted towards the brighter image, because the viewfinder
>> is no longer used for focussing. As a consequence of the demand for
>> brighter SLR viewfinders, DoF preview accuracy has reduced, to the point
>> where it is very misleading these days in almost all SLRs, and pretty
>> useless in many. The actual DoF is always much less than appears in the
>> viewfinder with modern cameras - unless they have interchangeable focus
>> screens and one is available that has been optimised for manual focus.
>
>Thanks. So the only way to check depth of field accurately would be to
>take one shot and examine it on the LCD screen (zooming into it)?

Pretty much.
--
Kennedy
Yes, Socrates himself is particularly missed;
A lovely little thinker, but a bugger when he's ****ed.
Python Philosophers (replace 'nospam' with 'kennedym' when replying)

In article <g17dp2$hep$>, lid writes
>Alfred Molon wrote:
>> In article <>, Kennedy McEwen
>>says...
>>
>>> In the old days (pre-1990), the tradeoff was made towards the
>>>accurate DoF representation. However, since AF became more common
>>>on SLRs, the tradeoff has shifted towards the brighter image,
>>>because the viewfinder is no longer used for focussing. As a
>>>consequence of the demand for brighter SLR viewfinders, DoF preview
>>>accuracy has reduced, to the point where it is very misleading these
>>>days in almost all SLRs, and pretty useless in many. The actual DoF
>>>is always much less than appears in the viewfinder with modern
>>>cameras - unless they have interchangeable focus screens and one is
>>>available that has been optimised for manual focus.
>> Thanks. So the only way to check depth of field accurately would be
>>to take one shot and examine it on the LCD screen (zooming into it)?
>
>Really? I never considered that even in the oldest of days an SLR
>screen DOF preview was for looking what was in focus ... it was for
>looking at what was really our of focus, to get the proper subject-
>background isolation.

I don't think it was ever called a "background isolation preview" button
by any manufacturer, and the reason is that it was meant to be for much
more than that! It was for assessing the depth of field - background
isolation being only an extreme limit of that. If all you are
interested in is a course decision of whether the background is isolated
then the DOF gauge on the lens barrel is good enough for that. Oh,
sorry, most of those have gone from modern AF lenses too.

>That still works fine on my Canon 30D.
>
It only gives you a rough idea, but always understates the level of
isolation, so if you are trying to do anything critical, it is virtually
useless.
--
Kennedy
Yes, Socrates himself is particularly missed;
A lovely little thinker, but a bugger when he's ****ed.
Python Philosophers (replace 'nospam' with 'kennedym' when replying)

"Kennedy McEwen" <> wrote in message
news:aj$4BeAVY$...
> In article <>, Alfred Molon
> <> writes
>>In article <>, Kennedy McEwen
>>says...
>>
>>> In the old days (pre-1990), the tradeoff was made towards the accurate
>>> DoF representation. However, since AF became more common on SLRs, the
>>> tradeoff has shifted towards the brighter image, because the viewfinder
>>> is no longer used for focussing. As a consequence of the demand for
>>> brighter SLR viewfinders, DoF preview accuracy has reduced, to the point
>>> where it is very misleading these days in almost all SLRs, and pretty
>>> useless in many. The actual DoF is always much less than appears in the
>>> viewfinder with modern cameras - unless they have interchangeable focus
>>> screens and one is available that has been optimised for manual focus.
>>
>>Thanks. So the only way to check depth of field accurately would be to
>>take one shot and examine it on the LCD screen (zooming into it)?
>
> Pretty much.
> --
> Kennedy
> Yes, Socrates himself is particularly missed;
> A lovely little thinker, but a bugger when he's ****ed.
> Python Philosophers (replace 'nospam' with 'kennedym' when
> replying)


Or take a digital preview shot on a Pentax K100D.