Digital Finders, Why So Small?

OK. So I'm shopping for a digital camera for colour work. I'm still with
film for Black And White work. How disappointing is all I can say. I compare
the finders of my film cameras Konicas (T3, FT-1) and Leicas (M3 and Rs) to
the "best" D-SLRs. They're all (ie. Canon 30D, Olympus E-, Lumix, Nikon)
about 60% smaller than the film cameras. I'm squinting. I feel like I'm
looking through a keyhole. I've totally written off any digital camera with
a through the lens LCD finder. Impossible to focus. What gives? Does anybody
make a decent finder (D-SLR or D-Rangefinder/Point and Shoot) anymore?!
(Thanks for letting me vent.)

"Alan Smithee" wrote in message
news:Zf0Jg.481393$Mn5.2003@pd7tw3no...

OK. So I'm shopping for a digital camera for colour work. I'm still with
film for Black And White work. How disappointing is all I can say. I
compare
the finders of my film cameras Konicas (T3, FT-1) and Leicas (M3 and Rs)
to
the "best" D-SLRs. They're all (ie. Canon 30D, Olympus E-, Lumix, Nikon)
about 60% smaller than the film cameras. I'm squinting. I feel like I'm
looking through a keyhole. I've totally written off any digital camera
with
a through the lens LCD finder. Impossible to focus. What gives? Does
anybody
make a decent finder (D-SLR or D-Rangefinder/Point and Shoot) anymore?!
(Thanks for letting me vent.

For some reason Nikon did not use a pentaprism in the D70s and just used
mirrors instead, resulting in a very poor viewfinder. I'm not sure why they
decided to skimp on such an important part of the camera- are pentaprisms
very costly?. It's so long since I've used a film SLR (about 20 years ago)
I can't remember how bright or large the image is, but I can imagine that
someone migrating from film would be disapointed, but I have migrated from
digital p&s so *any* SLR viewfinder is going to seem better than having to
use a 2 inch LCD as a "viewfinder".

Alan Smithee wrote:
OK. So I'm shopping for a digital camera for colour work. I'm still with
film for Black And White work. How disappointing is all I can say. I compare
the finders of my film cameras Konicas (T3, FT-1) and Leicas (M3 and Rs) to
the "best" D-SLRs. They're all (ie. Canon 30D, Olympus E-, Lumix, Nikon)
about 60% smaller than the film cameras. I'm squinting. I feel like I'm
looking through a keyhole. I've totally written off any digital camera with
a through the lens LCD finder. Impossible to focus. What gives? Does anybody
make a decent finder (D-SLR or D-Rangefinder/Point and Shoot) anymore?!
(Thanks for letting me vent.)


I assume you already understand "why" they are smaller. And I suppose that
you also understand that you can get a decent viewfinder on a digital SLR with
a full frame sensor, such as the 1Ds or probably even the 5D.

--
Thomas T. Veldhouse
Key Fingerprint: 2DB9 813F F510 82C2 E1AE 34D0 D69D 1EDC D5EC AED1

"Thomas T. Veldhouse" wrote in message
...
Alan Smithee wrote:
OK. So I'm shopping for a digital camera for colour work. I'm still with
film for Black And White work. How disappointing is all I can say. I
compare
the finders of my film cameras Konicas (T3, FT-1) and Leicas (M3 and Rs)
to
the "best" D-SLRs. They're all (ie. Canon 30D, Olympus E-, Lumix, Nikon)
about 60% smaller than the film cameras. I'm squinting. I feel like I'm
looking through a keyhole. I've totally written off any digital camera
with
a through the lens LCD finder. Impossible to focus. What gives? Does
anybody
make a decent finder (D-SLR or D-Rangefinder/Point and Shoot) anymore?!
(Thanks for letting me vent.)


I assume you already understand "why" they are smaller. And I suppose
that
you also understand that you can get a decent viewfinder on a digital SLR
with
a full frame sensor, such as the 1Ds or probably even the 5D.

Honestly, I don't fully understand the "why" question. Is it because of the
smaller image footprint? Looking though the Canon 30D and Nikon D70 reminded
me of an older economy Pentax Z- series film camera. I never understood why
that finder was so small and it was film.

"Adrian Boliston" wrote in message
...
"Alan Smithee" wrote in message
news:Zf0Jg.481393$Mn5.2003@pd7tw3no...

OK. So I'm shopping for a digital camera for colour work. I'm still with
film for Black And White work. How disappointing is all I can say. I
compare
the finders of my film cameras Konicas (T3, FT-1) and Leicas (M3 and Rs)
to
the "best" D-SLRs. They're all (ie. Canon 30D, Olympus E-, Lumix, Nikon)
about 60% smaller than the film cameras. I'm squinting. I feel like I'm
looking through a keyhole. I've totally written off any digital camera
with
a through the lens LCD finder. Impossible to focus. What gives? Does
anybody
make a decent finder (D-SLR or D-Rangefinder/Point and Shoot) anymore?!
(Thanks for letting me vent.

For some reason Nikon did not use a pentaprism in the D70s and just used
mirrors instead, resulting in a very poor viewfinder. I'm not sure why
they decided to skimp on such an important part of the camera- are
pentaprisms very costly?.
Yes, pentaprisms are heavier and more expensive than mirrors. Pentaprisms
are brighter than mirrors.
Every device has a target price point. The D70 was intended to sell at a
lower price point, and this decision results in the viewfinder that you see
as well as the inability to use
MF lenses.

I suppose I could mount the lens from the D70 on one of the film cameras
just for comparison. However,
the viewfinder on the D70 displays the scene about like I thought it would.
Jim

Adrian Boliston wrote:

For some reason Nikon did not use a pentaprism in the D70s and just used
mirrors instead, resulting in a very poor viewfinder. I'm not sure why they
decided to skimp on such an important part of the camera- are pentaprisms
very costly?.

Have you compared the "skimped on" D70 viewfinder with say a Canon 30d
costing about twice as much? Put the same maximum aperture lens on
both, and the viewfinder brightness as well as size seem identical. If
there was a cost/performance trade-off, then the cost to performance
wasn't very high.
For a big difference, look at a D200 - much better than either of the
above. For an even bigger difference, the Canon 5d.

In article nF0Jg.483783$iF6.466608@pd7tw2no, Alan Smithee
wrote:

Honestly, I don't fully understand the "why" question. Is it because of the
smaller image footprint? Looking though the Canon 30D and Nikon D70 reminded
me of an older economy Pentax Z- series film camera. I never understood why
that finder was so small and it was film.

There's an excellent article in this months Popular Photography on just
this topic. Old timer Herb Keppler explains it much better than I
could.

Basically, it comes down to money. The electronic guts of DSLRs are
expensive, and they "had" to meet a price point, so they skimped
somewhere else. Plus, the small format of current sensors and the
demand for lots of goodies in the finder reduce the view still further.

The Nikon D200 has an excellent finder (as digitals go) and the new,
much cheaper D80 is similar. Both are far better than the D70, which I
wanted desperately until I looked through the finder.

Herb Keppler's pick for best viewfinder? A 1959 Nikon "F."

Alan Smithee wrote:
OK. So I'm shopping for a digital camera for colour work. I'm still with
film for Black And White work. How disappointing is all I can say. I compare
the finders of my film cameras Konicas (T3, FT-1) and Leicas (M3 and Rs) to
the "best" D-SLRs. They're all (ie. Canon 30D, Olympus E-, Lumix, Nikon)
about 60% smaller than the film cameras. I'm squinting. I feel like I'm
looking through a keyhole. I've totally written off any digital camera with
a through the lens LCD finder. Impossible to focus. What gives? Does anybody
make a decent finder (D-SLR or D-Rangefinder/Point and Shoot) anymore?!
(Thanks for letting me vent.)



No. In fact, most of the new P&S cameras don't have viewfinders at all.
SAD.

I've totally written off any digital camera with
a through the lens LCD finder. Impossible to focus. What gives? Does anybody
make a decent finder (D-SLR or D-Rangefinder/Point and Shoot) anymore?!

There is a top-end point and shoot that fits the bill - The Ricoh GR
Digital with the optional optical viewfinder attached to the hot-shoe.
I've only ever played with one in a shop but you could tell that this
was one serious camera (goodness - it even has a fixed 28mm lens!). The
optical viewfinder was amazing - VERY bright and nowhere near as clunky
as it might first appear (similar to a wide-angle viewfinder fitted to
an M series Leica) . By all accounts a fantastic camera - but not cheap
though...

http://www.letsgodigital.org/html/re...amera_EN1.html
http://www.dpreview.com/reviews/ricohgrd/

Alan Smithee wrote:
OK. So I'm shopping for a digital camera for colour work. I'm still with
film for Black And White work. How disappointing is all I can say. I compare
the finders of my film cameras Konicas (T3, FT-1) and Leicas (M3 and Rs) to
the "best" D-SLRs. They're all (ie. Canon 30D, Olympus E-, Lumix, Nikon)
about 60% smaller than the film cameras. I'm squinting. I feel like I'm
looking through a keyhole. I've totally written off any digital camera with
a through the lens LCD finder. Impossible to focus. What gives? Does anybody
make a decent finder (D-SLR or D-Rangefinder/Point and Shoot) anymore?!
(Thanks for letting me vent.)

What every one seems to be missing here is that an APS sensor (most
DSLRs) is half the size of a 35mm film. You are just looking through a
smaller area. granted on Nikon D70 and D50 as well as the Canon Rebels
the companies made it worse by using mirror based viewfinders. Pentax
has made an inexpensive DSLR with a prism that is still light weight,
sometimes you just can't figure. What makes it worse too is that most
lenses shown on these cameras are the f3.5 - f5.6 variety. Old style
cameras generally had a single focal length f2 lens that 6X - 32X the
light in the finder. I imagine the excuse is that most lenses are
autofocus so all the photographer has to do is see the scene.
Any as another post said you have to get into the Nikon D200 to get an
acceptable viewfinder. Another camera with a good finder is the Olympus
E1, but the chip size is smaller than APS. Of course the 35mm frame
digitals, and most professional level digitals have a good finder.

Tom