What does Canon have against big viewfinders?

So I'm out of town on a business trip, and decide to stop in at the Circuit City by my hotel to see if they have a 40D in stock. I wanted to see one in person to see what I was missing out on. Well, turns out they did. First, let me state that the 40D is one nice camera. I especially love the feel of it (it's bigger than the 20D and fits my hands better). The 3inch LCD was great, and I especially like how it will show which AF points were used when previewing the image.

One of the things I was most looking forward to was the viewfinder, as it had been increased from the 20D/30D. I can say that I noticed the increase in size and it was nice. All was good until I picked up the Nikon D80 sitting right next to it only to find the viewfinder on the D80 was much bigger than the 40D. This was very hard for me to digest. The D80 has been out for about 11/2 - 2 years now, and is a $800 camera, and yet it has a beautiful viewfinder.

Is there some technical reason why Canon can't put a larger viewfinder on the XXD series? I know the 40D blows the D80 away in every respect, but I do wish the 40D had a viewfinder like the D80.

On a side note, I did look at the Olympus E-410 and it had a TINY viewfinder. It was like looking through a pin hole.

I don't think there are any technical hurdles that stop Canon from making their viewfinders in the XXD series to the same quality as Nikon. Their marketing gets in the way as Canon all along has crippled the XXD cameras so if you want any advanced feature...you would have to purchase their pro cameras. I believe Nikon has changed that playing field by releasing the D300 which has many advanced features in a consumer reachable price.

Hmm, at the risk of being flamed, I must say this..
I am coming from 35mm film and viewfinder cameras background and I know what beautiful viewfinder means, but I had more than a couple of occasions when I found viewfinder on 5D TOO large and kind of confusing!

Admittedly, I don`t own 5D and don`t have extensive experience with it, so I might be wrong..
Anyone else feel the same?

Other than that, I generally agree with Hogloff..

The D80 has a 0.94x viewfinder with a 1.5 crop and the 40D has a 0.95x viewfinder with a 1.6 crop. Not a lot of difference.

Steve

Steve-R,

I beg to differ. There is alot of difference. I held them side by side and I could tell a noticeable difference.

I thought the difference was noticeable in the vertical, not horizontally, and not significantly so...maybe the differences in tonal quality made the difference in size seem moreso...?

Ill have to check later, but Im pretty sure theres no difference large enough to be worth posting. I work at a camera store and see nothing but these cameras all day.

Ill check again on thursday

I don't know why. It's my biggest gripe with canon.

Maybe it's because they send half the light off to the AF system. Maybe Nikon sends less, allowing them to use more magnification.

I want a BW digital with no AF.

If you ever buy binoculars, you will learn about eye relief distance, exit pupil distance, etc. Canon makes nice binoculars, but apparently the Canon binocular engineers don't contribute to Canon camera design. Most Canon view finders suck. Canon probably sells bad view finders to shave a buck from cameras.

Haha man. I dont know where you get off saying they "suck". If the viewfinder on my MkIII ( and 40D! ) suck, Id sure like to see a good one!

AdamLewis wrote in post #4180831
Haha man. I dont know where you get off saying they "suck". If the viewfinder on my MkIII ( and 40D! ) suck, Id sure like to see a good one!

Pick up a manual SLR. Contax Aria, Canon F-1, Olympus MF.

There is little if any different in viewfinder size between the 40D and 1D that I noticed... but its definitely larger than the 30D and MUCH larger than the Rebels.

Hermeto wrote in post #4180329
Hmm, at the risk of being flamed, I must say this..
I am coming from 35mm film and viewfinder cameras background and I know what beautiful viewfinder means, but I had more than a couple of occasions when I found viewfinder on 5D TOO large and kind of confusing!

Admittedly, I don`t own 5D and don`t have extensive experience with it, so I might be wrong..
Anyone else feel the same?

Other than that, I generally agree with Hogloff..

i own the 5d and the 30d and honestly unless i think about it the difference in viewfinder size really isn't a big deal to me.

ed rader

DocFrankenstein wrote in post #4180853
Pick up a manual SLR. Contax Aria, Canon F-1, Olympus MF.

Ok...so...

Im reading, "Pick up a dinosaur thats never used anymore".

Im talking about relevant technology. If my MkIII and 40D viewfinders suck, Id love to see one thats awesome.

Yup - the viewfinder was one of the biggest disappointments I had on moving from 35mm to dSLR. The next camera I get will be 99% or better. 95% doesn't cut it I'm afraid.
When I checked up on this, I was staggered to find that Canon quotes linear coverage (how phoney is that!), not area coverage. My OM2 VF covered 97% of the area, but the 30D, with 95% linear cover, covers only 90% of the area! That means is that I'm throwing away 10% of my pixels simply because they can play no part in my composition if I can't see them. The VF image looks great, but once you see what's captured, there's a tree, or a hand, or a head, or a car, or something on the edge that has to be cropped.

That's the coverage rant over. The apparent size issue is a little more understandable as there is a trade-off between image brightness and size, and croppers, with their smaller mirrors, are always going to have less light to spread across the VF.

Next camera for me: full-frame, and >98% linear VF cover (but 100% would be what I was looking for). I'll also take liveview with magnification on a swivel screen too, thanks. I *really* hope these are on the 5D Mk II spec list.

Thanks for the opportunity to vent - I need to go and have a quiet sit down now.