r.p.d.zlr

John Turco wrote:
John Navas wrote:
On Fri, 08 Feb 2008 01:21:15 -0600, John Turco
wrote in :

John Navas wrote:

edited for brevity

There is no way to enforce anything on Usenet, a bit part of why it's
withering away.
With close to 6,900 subscribers, news:rec.photo.digital is probably the
most active newsgroup in all of Usenet, today.

How's that, for bucking a negative trend? :-J
Actually following the negative trend -- traffic is way down from its
heyday.


Hello, John:

Nevertheless, it's still quite healthy. The same can't be said, for the
other newsgroup I regularly follow:

news:comp.sys.ibm.pc.hardware.storage

In the late 1990's, news:comp.sys.ibm.pc.hardware.cd-rom was my main
Usenet hangout; I'm still the all-time leading poster, there, with 535
articles. Within a few years after I left (autumn of '99), the group was
practically dead.

Was "Rita" posting at that time there?



In any event, there will be no name changes or consolidations of the rpd
hierarchy, regardless of how well the actual name tracks or is liked.

But, please, keep on with the arguing!
[Not referring to you, JT]

--

John McWilliams

dj_nme wrote:
Chris Malcolm wrote:
John Turco wrote:

John Navas wrote:


heavily edited for brevity


My own take is that zoom lens reflex (ZLR) is a good way to describe
cameras with a single fixed zoom lens for both viewing and
photographing, whether the viewfinder is optical or electronic. It's
descriptive and meaningful, preserves the basic distinction of the
first
paragraph above, and distinguishes them from common single lens
cameras
with interchangeable lenses. But it looks unlikely to catch on, so
we're left with imprecision and a certain amount of confusion, for the
time being at least.

The "reflex" part of the TLA is misleading, there is no reflex with an
EVF.
Reflex implies optical TTL viewfinder with either a mirror (as in all
the Olympus film ZLR cameras & other SLR cameras) or splitting prism
(like the Olympus E20 & E10 Digital ZLR cameras) to direct the image
up to a focusing/viewing screen in the viewfinder.

I think that generally speaking it's best to categorise on essential
elements of principle or design, rather than accidents of marketing
stragegies which may well prove temporary. It's categorising on the
basis of accidents of the market which has led to all the misleading
categories which photography now so confusingly suffers from.


Let's make it really simple then.
What do all these digital cameras have in common?
An EVF.
I propose the terms "EVF camera" & "EVF digicam" to describe this
class of digital camera.

I agree. The more I use the EVF the more I like it. One issue is that
the mfg need to really upgrade the EVF to the quality of the LCD. They
need to understand that most of the enthusiasts who purchase this type
of camera place a high value on the EVF.

On Sun, 10 Feb 2008 16:59:54 -0800, nospam
wrote:

In article , John Navas
wrote:

Please explain where the light path is bent in a EVF camera.

The electrical path is bent.

what a hoot. now that's grasping at straws.

Well, more a case of electrons than straws but I agree with
your assessment of the discussion :-)

--
John Bean

On Mon, 11 Feb 2008 12:02:00 +1100, dj_nme
wrote:

What's your suggestion?

I have none. My objection to EVF is that although it's a
*much* better descriptor than ZLR joe public hasn't a clue
what TLA means any more than the abysmally inaccurate "ZLR"
tag. No matter what TLA you or I think is sensible it's
nonsense unless a camera buyer recognises it and knows the
kind of camera it's generally describing.

When I asked a non-photographic friend if he had heard of a
SLR he said he had, and correctly identified my two SLRs
from the mess of other cameras. He didn't know what the
letters "SLR" referred to, but he knew roughly what kind of
camera it was.

However he had no idea what either a ZLR or EVF was, or even
whether it was a camera.


--
John Bean

John Navas wrote:
The electrical path is bent.

Oh please. Now you are changing from ludicrous to insane.

Yes, you can bend the path of electrons. Usually this is done with strong
magnetic fields like e.g. in a CRT aka your traditional TV.

Or are you talking about cables and the electrical path in printed circuits
as "bent"? In that case any electronic device has a bent electrical path.

jue

David J Taylor wrote:
dj_nme wrote:
[]

No they don't.
A ZLR camera is just an SLR cameras with a zoom lens integral with the
body, they do not have an EVF.
ZLR cameras have a TTL optical viewfinder, just like any other SLR
camera.


I have two ZLR cameras here which both have EVFs - the Panasonic FZ5 and
FZ20, and arguably the Nikon 8400 as well.

They have EVF, not reflex viewfinders.
Without a reflex viewfinder, it aint a ZLR camera.

Just because you want an EVF to be a reflex viewfinder does not make
it so.


The EVFs in my cameras function exactly as expected, providing a right-way
up image. I would not "want" them to do anything else.

That is irrelevent.
Your Pinocchio (the EVF) will never be a real boy (reflex viewfinder),
no matter how hard you wish is to be.

On Tue, 12 Feb 2008 09:57:04 +1100, dj_nme wrote
in :

That is irrelevent.
Your Pinocchio (the EVF) will never be a real boy (reflex viewfinder),
no matter how hard you wish is to be.

Your personal rigid definition will never be accepted by us no matter
how hard you wish is to be.

--
Best regards,
John Navas
Panasonic DMC-FZ8 (and several others)

measekite wrote:
dj_nme wrote:
snip
Let's make it really simple then.
What do all these digital cameras have in common?
An EVF.
I propose the terms "EVF camera" & "EVF digicam" to describe this
class of digital camera.

I agree. The more I use the EVF the more I like it. One issue is that
the mfg need to really upgrade the EVF to the quality of the LCD. They
need to understand that most of the enthusiasts who purchase this type
of camera place a high value on the EVF.

There are quite a few HMDs (head mounted displays) in the market today
which have micro LCD 800x600pixel (super VGA) displays.
It shouldn't be difficult for a manufacturer to use one of these SVGA
micro LCD panels in a digicam EVF instead of the grainy low-res ones
used today.
The problem seems to be that for a simple HMD with no headtracking cost
somewhere between $1200 and $2000, so I fear that the cost of the high
resolution micro LCD could push the price point of this hypothetical EVF
camera well beyond what an entry-level DSLR camera costs these days.
My suspision is that even SVGA won't be high enough resolution to
replace an SLR viewfinder and justify the high cost of the this
hypothetical EVF camera.

On Tue, 12 Feb 2008 10:17:39 +1100, dj_nme wrote
in :

My suspision is that even SVGA won't be high enough resolution to
replace an SLR viewfinder and justify the high cost of the this
hypothetical EVF camera.

Current resolution works quite well. The manual focus auto-zoom in the
EVF in my Panasonic DMC-FZ8 beats an optical viewfinder hands down.

--
Best regards,
John Navas
Panasonic DMC-FZ8 (and several others)

John Bean wrote:

On Mon, 11 Feb 2008 12:02:00 +1100, dj_nme
wrote:


What's your suggestion?


I have none. My objection to EVF is that although it's a
*much* better descriptor than ZLR joe public hasn't a clue
what TLA means any more than the abysmally inaccurate "ZLR"
tag. No matter what TLA you or I think is sensible it's
nonsense unless a camera buyer recognises it and knows the
kind of camera it's generally describing.

When I asked a non-photographic friend if he had heard of a
SLR he said he had, and correctly identified my two SLRs
from the mess of other cameras. He didn't know what the
letters "SLR" referred to, but he knew roughly what kind of
camera it was.

However he had no idea what either a ZLR or EVF was, or even
whether it was a camera.

That's not the point.
If your going to use a term to describe something, it should be as
accurate as possible.
Calling a camera with an EVF a "ZLR camera" is still misleading: as it
implies that it has a reflex viewfinder, which an EVF demonstrably is not.
Describing a digital camera with an EVF as a "ZLR camera" is like
calling this
http://www.digitalphotopeople.com/index.php?showtopic=1071 an "SLR
camera".