EVF vs. OVF

Sony is releasing a bunch of their DSLR's with EVF's....

what are the benefits of this? this is a sample of their new Alpha a77...

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dtufino wrote in post #12950923
Sony is releasing a bunch of their DSLR's with EVF's....

what are the benefits of this? this is a sample of their new Alpha a77...

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i'm not at all interested in buying, i'm just curious as to what are the benefits over the OVF....

thanks!

A live histogram in the VF for one...
...the lack of a mirror removes some of the capture speed restrictions and removes all visual blackout that occurs in a traditional SLR.

i have never used an EVF which gives you even a vague chance of hitting MF correctly. horrible idea.

magwai wrote in post #12956181
i have never used an EVF which gives you even a vague chance of hitting MF correctly. horrible idea.

Have you tried the Panasonic micro 4/3 cameras? They're much better than an optical viewfinder for manual focus as you can zoom in up to (I think) 10x while focusing. On the more recent models, they're rather good regardless of the focusing help, and bigger/brighter than all but the very top Canon optical viewfinders. I'd still prefer to look through an optical viewfinder most of the time, however, but not when manual focusing...

i was just curious, i mean it would suck if all cameras came with a OVF, but it wouldbe amazing if Canon and Nikon would adopt both....

like the x100, you have EVF and OVF, but the EVF on the X100 blows when taking snapshops...

gcogger wrote in post #12956308
Have you tried the Panasonic micro 4/3 cameras? They're much better than an optical viewfinder for manual focus as you can zoom in up to (I think) 10x while focusing. On the more recent models, they're rather good regardless of the focusing help, and bigger/brighter than all but the very top Canon optical viewfinders. I'd still prefer to look through an optical viewfinder most of the time, however, but not when manual focusing...

This is a good point. The X100 has the same feature. Quick AF to get in the ballpark, enlarge focus point and fine tune with MF. Awesome idea for macro and product photography.

While it may not be as good as the OVF for many other things, it does also look like a nice feature for low light, where you can simply turn up the brightness to help with composition.

I would very much like to see the hybrid VF on future EOS bodies.

gcogger wrote in post #12956308
Have you tried the Panasonic micro 4/3 cameras? They're much better than an optical viewfinder for manual focus as you can zoom in up to (I think) 10x while focusing. On the more recent models, they're rather good regardless of the focusing help, and bigger/brighter than all but the very top Canon optical viewfinders. I'd still prefer to look through an optical viewfinder most of the time, however, but not when manual focusing...

No I havn't. I take it you mean to zoom in on the VF only?

To be honest the modern dlsr OVFs are not well set up for MF. The old film cameras were much better.

Advantages of EVF:
1) Cheap - eliminates expensive optical path from lens to eye.
2) Potentially smaller and lighter
3) Allows additional info in display such as histogram

Disadvantages of EVF:
1) Low resolution relative to OFV
2) Update rate. Until the update rate is close to zero, the EVF will be undesireable for action.

magwai wrote in post #12961721
No I havn't. I take it you mean to zoom in on the VF only?

Not quite sure what you mean? You can zoom in using either the viewfinder or the LCD.

EVF can be made bigger for much cheaper. Sony's entry level a35, which competes with Canon's 1100D, has a 1.1x 100% viewfinder. That bigger than the 7D with the same coverage.

Another nice thing is that you can see the exposure, white balance, etc real time since you are seeing what the sensor sees.

EVFs have only gotten competitive in the last year or so. Luckily they follow Moore's law so they should be getting awesome very shortly.

They're inexpensive and very large compared to all but the best OVFs. They also don't have to obey all of those nasty laws of optics and obviate the need for large/expensive mirror boxes and pentaprisms, which also means they can have almost no shutter lag as there's no mirror to move.

Plus you get things like live histagram, better FPS, no mirror blackout for either you or the AF mechanisms (if any), and a few other goodies. Power consumption is one of the big downsides.

This is one thing I have been wondering too. Sony recently has been coming out with some really impressive specs for their entry level cameras, and I am just trying to find out what the downsides are.

Red Tie Photography wrote in post #12974583
This is one thing I have been wondering too. Sony recently has been coming out with some really impressive specs for their entry level cameras, and I am just trying to find out what the downsides are.

Too easy

Kind of excited about the NEX-7 for use with MF lenses only (not a single NEX lens worth buying). Hopefully a very nice EVF (rumored to have approximately 750 trillion pixels!) with the best MF assist feature of all the mirrorless cameras: peaking!

However, that means investing in a bunch of rangefinder glass...ugh. The dream is that Samsung makes the NX20 a NEX-7 competitor. I'll buy one immediately along with their 30 pancake.

I have a GH2 and while an EVF is nice in good light, the refresh rate AND graininess brought on by increasing the gain while in low light is absolutely terrible, and I mean TERRIBLE, as in black with no detail whatsoever for one to MF with. It's a very good EVF but still does not give you the feel of an OVF, which frankly I like a lot better - and it is not just tradition. I also am not a big fan of having readouts all over everything when I am composing...yes you can customize of course but again, it is not the same.

The flip side is that he AF on the GH2, while maybe not as quick as the 7D (when I had it), is very, very fast and moreso incredibly accurate - it almost always hits focus.