My first exposure to the electronic view finder came in the form of a camcorder I bought many years ago. It ran on Hi-8 tapes and the finder was black and white. After looking through the finder for more than a few minutes I would get a headache and it literally felt as if somebody had tried to shift my dominant left eye from it’s normal position into the neighbouring eyeball's socket. I could never get used to it.
Some time later I got a more advanced camcorder, one with a flip out screen and that became my modus operandi for making home movies. A darn sight better than morphing into a cyclops.
That initial experience with an EVF created a paradigm in my brain surrounding the usefulness of such a view finder. They couldn’t possibly be used for stills photography because they were so crap. I carried this notion around for years and even scoffed at the idea when mirrorless cameras first began appearing with them a few years ago. It simply couldn’t work for photography. Or could it?
Well, I’ve been using the Olympus OM-D system for over 18 months now and I have completely shifted that paradigm. It’s my firm belief that the EVF is by far superior to the optical viewfinders found in traditional DSLR’s.
When you look at the EVF you’re seeing how the camera is interpreting the scene and not how your brain is interpreting it based on the original light from the scene hitting your retina via an optical formula. This has a massive implication on how you can adapt the camera settings to better suit any particular situation. For instance you will immediately see the effect of exposure compensation on the image in the EVF if you have set up your camera to do that.
Case in point: last year while we were on safari in Namibia we crossed over the Tropic of Capricorn on our way to Swakopmund. We all got out and posed near the sign. It was a tricky photo situation because the sun was somewhat behind us, although still fairly high in the sky. You needed to compensate if you wanted the subject to be well lit. But by how much?
One of our Safarians set up his Nikon DSLR next to mine and we both set the self-timers to go off after we had gotten into position for the shot. While I was doing this through the EVF I could immediately see that if I left the camera to make up its own mind about the exposure I would get something that wouldn’t be quite what I had in mind - subjects somewhat underexposed. So I used positive compensation by about 2.7 stops and I got a much livelier exposure where the subjects and not the landscape behind them were properly exposed. The image below is actually one of my favourite shots of the entire month long safari.
Image may be NSFW.
Clik here to view.
The Safarians Meet the Tropic Of Capricorn
Image may be NSFW.
Clik here to view.
This is what the camera wanted to expose
My guest who had set up next to me saw my result and said something like “Shoot. I didn’t even think to do that.” Actually, neither had I, but because I had the camera’s EVF set up to show the effects of exposure compensation in the finder, I was immediately aware of how changing it would result in a better picture. Had I been shooting with my DSLR at the time I probably would have left the camera to decide on how to expose the scene and then had to deal with it in post. Not an optimal solution.
This is just one example of how the EVF worked for me on that trip. Other major advantages included the fact that while we were shooting in the extremely bright conditions of Namibia, I could chimp at what I had just shot simply by looking into the EVF and playing back the image instead of trying to make out what was on the rear LCD in the strong light. Then there is also the presence of an optional live histogram, as well as shadow and highlight clipping warnings if you want them displayed. Something else to consider is that when you're shooting in very low lit situations a good EVF will show you a lot more than you'll get to see with an OVF. I have found this particularly useful for photographing audiences in dark auditoriums. The OVF found in a typical DSLR can never do this as well, regardless of how bright it is.
One of the biggest advantages to the EVF however is the addition of focus peaking for when you are manually focussing lenses. Prior to getting the Olympus E-M1 I had never seen this in action, but now that I have I actually feel quite confident to use old manual focus lenses on the E-M1 via an adapter. The system works very well, allowing me to achieve far better results than I could do with manual focus lenses on a DSLR with optical finder and the focus confirmation dot.
Nowadays the EVF’s found in top line cameras like the OM-D E-M1 are of excellent quality too, so it’s not like you are going to be subjected to the kind of paradigm forming VGA experience we got from those old camcorders. It’s hard to describe this to people who haven’t used an EVF before, so the sensible advice would be to get down to your nearest camera dealer and ask if you can play around with one in store.
Personally I don’t ever see myself going back to using a prism based optical view finder, even though they are somewhat better for tracking high speed action. In situations where it counts they are simply primitive when compared to a modern EVF. Perhaps the day might come where DSLR's begin sporting hybrid finders so that you can get the best of both worlds, but that will surely come at a very high price point. Right now the mirrorless cameras with EVF's are making photographers like me far more proficient than the OVF ever could.
Some time later I got a more advanced camcorder, one with a flip out screen and that became my modus operandi for making home movies. A darn sight better than morphing into a cyclops.
That initial experience with an EVF created a paradigm in my brain surrounding the usefulness of such a view finder. They couldn’t possibly be used for stills photography because they were so crap. I carried this notion around for years and even scoffed at the idea when mirrorless cameras first began appearing with them a few years ago. It simply couldn’t work for photography. Or could it?
Well, I’ve been using the Olympus OM-D system for over 18 months now and I have completely shifted that paradigm. It’s my firm belief that the EVF is by far superior to the optical viewfinders found in traditional DSLR’s.
When you look at the EVF you’re seeing how the camera is interpreting the scene and not how your brain is interpreting it based on the original light from the scene hitting your retina via an optical formula. This has a massive implication on how you can adapt the camera settings to better suit any particular situation. For instance you will immediately see the effect of exposure compensation on the image in the EVF if you have set up your camera to do that.
Case in point: last year while we were on safari in Namibia we crossed over the Tropic of Capricorn on our way to Swakopmund. We all got out and posed near the sign. It was a tricky photo situation because the sun was somewhat behind us, although still fairly high in the sky. You needed to compensate if you wanted the subject to be well lit. But by how much?
One of our Safarians set up his Nikon DSLR next to mine and we both set the self-timers to go off after we had gotten into position for the shot. While I was doing this through the EVF I could immediately see that if I left the camera to make up its own mind about the exposure I would get something that wouldn’t be quite what I had in mind - subjects somewhat underexposed. So I used positive compensation by about 2.7 stops and I got a much livelier exposure where the subjects and not the landscape behind them were properly exposed. The image below is actually one of my favourite shots of the entire month long safari.
Image may be NSFW.
Clik here to view.
The Safarians Meet the Tropic Of Capricorn
Image may be NSFW.
Clik here to view.
This is what the camera wanted to expose
My guest who had set up next to me saw my result and said something like “Shoot. I didn’t even think to do that.” Actually, neither had I, but because I had the camera’s EVF set up to show the effects of exposure compensation in the finder, I was immediately aware of how changing it would result in a better picture. Had I been shooting with my DSLR at the time I probably would have left the camera to decide on how to expose the scene and then had to deal with it in post. Not an optimal solution.
This is just one example of how the EVF worked for me on that trip. Other major advantages included the fact that while we were shooting in the extremely bright conditions of Namibia, I could chimp at what I had just shot simply by looking into the EVF and playing back the image instead of trying to make out what was on the rear LCD in the strong light. Then there is also the presence of an optional live histogram, as well as shadow and highlight clipping warnings if you want them displayed. Something else to consider is that when you're shooting in very low lit situations a good EVF will show you a lot more than you'll get to see with an OVF. I have found this particularly useful for photographing audiences in dark auditoriums. The OVF found in a typical DSLR can never do this as well, regardless of how bright it is.
One of the biggest advantages to the EVF however is the addition of focus peaking for when you are manually focussing lenses. Prior to getting the Olympus E-M1 I had never seen this in action, but now that I have I actually feel quite confident to use old manual focus lenses on the E-M1 via an adapter. The system works very well, allowing me to achieve far better results than I could do with manual focus lenses on a DSLR with optical finder and the focus confirmation dot.
Nowadays the EVF’s found in top line cameras like the OM-D E-M1 are of excellent quality too, so it’s not like you are going to be subjected to the kind of paradigm forming VGA experience we got from those old camcorders. It’s hard to describe this to people who haven’t used an EVF before, so the sensible advice would be to get down to your nearest camera dealer and ask if you can play around with one in store.
Personally I don’t ever see myself going back to using a prism based optical view finder, even though they are somewhat better for tracking high speed action. In situations where it counts they are simply primitive when compared to a modern EVF. Perhaps the day might come where DSLR's begin sporting hybrid finders so that you can get the best of both worlds, but that will surely come at a very high price point. Right now the mirrorless cameras with EVF's are making photographers like me far more proficient than the OVF ever could.