Screen Vs Eyepiece Composition. You Decide.

[Don Simon]

Current Olympus dSLRs do have the 'live preview'... apparently no one noticed that, guess someone should send their marketing department a note.

It wasn't that long ago that composing on an LCD screen was a new thing... but I guess it's like having mobile (cell) phones - people can't remember what life was like before. If I was using a compact I would definitely use the screen over the crappy little viewfinders, and I like being able to use it at waist level as I can with a TLR, but yeah I'm happy enough with the viewfinder on my dSLR... though I'd be a lot happier if it could be as big and bright as the ones on older film SLRs (btw shingfan it wasn't always hard to tell with the viewfinder on film SLRs, not before they introduced autofocus and decided we didn't need to know if it was in focus and should place our faith in the camera... while autofocus can focus better or faster, it doesn't mean it always does!)

 

[shingfan]

Current Olympus dSLRs do have the 'live preview'... apparently no one noticed that, guess someone should send their marketing department a note.

It wasn't that long ago that composing on an LCD screen was a new thing... but I guess it's like having mobile (cell) phones - people can't remember what life was like before. If I was using a compact I would definitely use the screen over the crappy little viewfinders, and I like being able to use it at waist level as I can with a TLR, but yeah I'm happy enough with the viewfinder on my dSLR... though I'd be a lot happier if it could be as big and bright as the ones on older film SLRs (btw shingfan it wasn't always hard to tell with the viewfinder on film SLRs, not before they introduced autofocus and decided we didn't need to know if it was in focus and should place our faith in the camera... while autofocus can focus better or faster, it doesn't mean it always does!)

of course..when i speak...is never 100% certainty....the reason i said it is hard to focus on viewfinder is because i have poor eyes.....so it is hard for me to judge whether it is in "perfect" focus....is more of a guess for me...and the way i use manual focus (when i need)...i find the middle of the DOF.....that is as best as i "SEE"...haha....terrible eyes are just not meant for photography

 

[ksmattfish]

I use the viewfinder, but that's because my DSLRs don't have live preview. I'd love to use a live preview LCD for composition. It would be the same to me as using a camera with a ground glass, which I prefer for taking photos of people. It would need to swivel, to be seen from other angles than just directly behind. I'd mostly use it like a waist level finder on my medium format SLRs and TLRs.

 

[Sw1tchFX]

the e-330 is the only DSLR with a live view. I could see it useful for macro photography, but that's it.

 

[digital flower]

My P&S has the swivel screen and I love it. Great for incognito photography, you can take peoples picture without looking at them. I find it useful for flower photography it opens a whole new set of angles that I wouldn't have thought of if I had to have the camera up to my eye. When I got my DSLR I did enjoy going back to traditional eyepiece viewing but I still use my P&S with the screen 90% of the time.

 

[seanberry]

My Photolife magazine says that the Panasonic Lumix DMC-L1 is capable of Live Preview. It does it by moving the mirror up and allowing the sensor to see the image. However for autofocus, it has to move the mirror back down so auto-focus can be slow in the Live Preview mode. Does anyone know how the Olympus does it?

 

[Sw1tchFX]

the olympus has a 2nd sensor by the viewfinder:



in all seriousness though, it's got a small sensor (2x crop) so a 100mm lens is like a 200mm lens, so It's probably great for macro photography, and the live view i'd assume is handy when gettin' low, but that's all i can really see it's useful for. I absolutely hate the 4/3rd's format.