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Shawn wrote on Sat, 06 Sep 2008 16:38:27 -0400:

I don't intend to be sarcastic but "hybrid" is a new term for me if it
describes a non-mirror digital slr. Has it been generally accepted?
There is a not very active r.p.d.zlr group that seems to cover them but
I would have thought that the existing r.p.d.slr-systems would be
enough. "Reflex" does not seem to require an analog mirror to me.

--

James Silverton
Potomac, Maryland

Email, with obvious alterations: not.jim.silverton.at.verizon.not

James Silverton wrote:
> Shawn wrote on Sat, 06 Sep 2008 16:38:27 -0400:
>
> I don't intend to be sarcastic but "hybrid" is a new term for me if it
> describes a non-mirror digital slr. Has it been generally accepted?

On the dpreview forums the term "EVIL" camera (electronic viewfinder
interchangeable lens) has been used for a few years to describe this
type of camera in various discussions.
Phil Askley put up (on Tuesday, 5 August) the Olympus announcement about
the proposed Micro FourThirds system
<http://www.dpreview.com/news/0808/08080501microfourthirds.asp>, but
there still is no manufacturer defined term for this general type of camera.

> There is a not very active r.p.d.zlr group

It's been dead almost since it was created.
Well to be more accurate, more like less than a few months after it's
creation all the original posting (there is still some cross-posting) to
it petered out completely.
Considering that the term "zlr camera" was coined by Olympus to describe
their IS series of fixed (non-interchangeable) zoom lens film SLR
cameras and used the same term to describe their fixed zoom lens DSLR
cameras (such as the D600L and E-20), there must have been some
resistance to using the same term for EVF digicams (or "bridge"
digicams) which are externally shaped and styled to vaguely resemble a
SLR camera (a good example is the Fujifilm FinePix S100FS) but have no
actual optical reflex viewfinder.

> that seems to cover them but
> I would have thought that the existing r.p.d.slr-systems would be
> enough. "Reflex" does not seem to require an analog mirror to me.

There is no analogue of a mirror in a SLR camera (film or digital),
there is an actual mirror (or other reflective surface, such as a
beamsplitter prism as found in the Olympus E-10 and E-20) to redirect
the image onto the focus screen in the viewfinder.

dj_nme wrote on Sun, 07 Sep 2008 13:56:40 +1000:

> James Silverton wrote:
>> that seems to cover them but I would have thought that the existing
>> r.p.d.slr-systems
>> would be enough. "Reflex" does not seem to require an analog mirror
>> to me.

>There is no analogue of a mirror in a SLR camera (film or digital),
>there is an actual mirror (or other reflective surface, such as a
>beamsplitter prism as found in the Olympus E-10 and E-20)
> to redirect the image onto the focus screen in the viewfinder.

Fair enough but I was, perhaps imprecisely, using "analog" in the sense
of a non-digital, mechanical method to direct the image to the eyepiece.
I don't how Olympus' semireflecting mirror would be classified.
..

--

James Silverton
Potomac, Maryland

Email, with obvious alterations: not.jim.silverton.at.verizon.not

James Silverton wrote:
> dj_nme wrote on Sun, 07 Sep 2008 13:56:40 +1000:
>
>> James Silverton wrote:
>>> that seems to cover them but I would have thought that the existing
>>> r.p.d.slr-systems
>>> would be enough. "Reflex" does not seem to require an analog mirror
>>> to me.
>
>> There is no analogue of a mirror in a SLR camera (film or digital),
>> there is an actual mirror (or other reflective surface, such as a
>> beamsplitter prism as found in the Olympus E-10 and E-20)
>> to redirect the image onto the focus screen in the viewfinder.
>
> Fair enough but I was, perhaps imprecisely, using "analog" in the sense
> of a non-digital, mechanical method to direct the image to the eyepiece.
> I don't how Olympus' semireflecting mirror would be classified.

The same as the Canon Pellix and EOS-1n RS, they're still SLR cameras.
Even if the lens can't be interchanged, as in the case of the Olympus
ZLR cameras.

dj_nme wrote on Mon, 08 Sep 2008 00:11:02 +1000:

> James Silverton wrote:
>> dj_nme wrote on Sun, 07 Sep 2008 13:56:40 +1000:
>>
>>> James Silverton wrote:
>>>> that seems to cover them but I would have thought that the existing
>>>> r.p.d.slr-systems would be enough. "Reflex" does
>>>> not seem to require an analog mirror to me.
>>
>>> There is no analogue of a mirror in a SLR camera (film or
>>> digital), there is an actual mirror (or other reflective
>>> surface, such as a beamsplitter prism as found in the
>>> Olympus E-10 and E-20) to redirect the image onto the focus screen
>>> in the viewfinder.
>>
>> Fair enough but I was, perhaps imprecisely, using "analog" in
>> the sense of a non-digital, mechanical method to direct the
>> image to the eyepiece. I don't how Olympus' semireflecting
>> mirror would be classified.


>The same as the Canon Pellix and EOS-1n RS, they're still SLR
>cameras.Even if the lens can't be interchanged, as in the case of the
>Olympus ZLR cameras.

No argument! I suppose the distinction might be between mechanical (eg.
moving mirror) and digital reflex cameras. I don't think there is a
digital viewfinder that fully compares with a mirror but it will happen,
I believe.

--

James Silverton
Potomac, Maryland

Email, with obvious alterations: not.jim.silverton.at.verizon.not

James Silverton wrote:
> dj_nme wrote on Mon, 08 Sep 2008 00:11:02 +1000:
>
>> James Silverton wrote:
<snip>
>>>
>>> Fair enough but I was, perhaps imprecisely, using "analog" in
>>> the sense of a non-digital, mechanical method to direct the
>>> image to the eyepiece. I don't how Olympus' semireflecting
>>> mirror would be classified.
>
>
>> The same as the Canon Pellix and EOS-1n RS, they're still SLR
>> cameras.Even if the lens can't be interchanged, as in the case of the
>> Olympus ZLR cameras.
>
> No argument! I suppose the distinction might be between mechanical (eg.
> moving mirror) and digital reflex cameras. I don't think there is a
> digital viewfinder that fully compares with a mirror but it will happen,
> I believe.

Maybe.
Hopefully the Olympus Mu4/3 cameras will have something suitable?

The best EVF that I've used is on the Konica-Minolta Dimage A2, it
was/is 640x480 pixel (300k pixels, but marketed as 900K pixels by
counting the RGB sub-pixels) and even that really is nowhere close to
being useful for manual focus without the "focus zoom" trick that a lot
of this type of camera (bridge/EVF digicam) have.

A proper replacement for an optical TTL viewfinder (as found in a [d]slr
camera) would have to be of very high resolution.
Perhaps at least 1200k pixels (at least twice the linear resolution of
the A2's EVF) and maybe a lot more to be as good as an average SLR
viewfinder.