Camera search problem

I am looking for a camera, with specific (but not particularly unusual)
properties. Unfortunately, I can't cut the range down to a number
that is feasible to investigate individually, as my main sine qua non
doesn't seem to be a standard search term!

I.e. I need a viewfinder. No ifs, buts or maybes - I NEED one.
I have tried to use my wife's one without, and it's hopeless - I can't
see the viewfinder with glasses on and I can't see anything else
without. A fairly common problem for people of my age with short
sight.

Unfortunately, there don't seem to be many small, light, (fairly)
cheap ones with viewfinders, and I haven't found any with my other
requirements (mainly as much optical zoom as possible). So I am trying
to find the best of an unsatisfactory lot.

Can anyone suggest how I can find out all or almost all cameras
under 250 grammes and a viewfinder? I can do the former, easily
enough, but not the latter.


Regards,
Nick Maclaren.

wrote:
I.e. I need a viewfinder. No ifs, buts or maybes - I NEED one.
I have tried to use my wife's one without, and it's hopeless - I can't
see the viewfinder with glasses on and I can't see anything else
without. A fairly common problem for people of my age with short
sight.

Unfortunately, there don't seem to be many small, light, (fairly)
cheap ones with viewfinders, and I haven't found any with my other
requirements (mainly as much optical zoom as possible). So I am trying
to find the best of an unsatisfactory lot.

Yeap, manufacturers more and more removed the viewfinder to save some
money to the great annoyance of many people. I wonder if they will ever
learn that customer demand should be a consideration.

Can anyone suggest how I can find out all or almost all cameras
under 250 grammes and a viewfinder? I can do the former, easily
enough, but not the latter.

Digital SLRs (still?) have viewfinders, but of course they are a
different class wrt. price and weight.

I'd check your favourite local camera shop and ask there.

jue

In article ,
Jürgen Exner wrote:

Yeap, manufacturers more and more removed the viewfinder to save some
money to the great annoyance of many people. I wonder if they will ever
learn that customer demand should be a consideration.

Probably not in my lifetime :-(

Digital SLRs (still?) have viewfinders, but of course they are a
different class wrt. price and weight.

Yes. As it is for walking (backpacking), and I am not as young as
I was, that is a problem.

I'd check your favourite local camera shop and ask there.

Been there - done that. I may try again.

Thanks for your help.


Regards,
Nick Maclaren.

wrote:
In article ,
Jürgen Exner wrote:

Yeap, manufacturers more and more removed the viewfinder to save
some
money to the great annoyance of many people. I wonder if they will
ever learn that customer demand should be a consideration.

Probably not in my lifetime :-(

Digital SLRs (still?) have viewfinders, but of course they are a
different class wrt. price and weight.

Yes. As it is for walking (backpacking), and I am not as young as
I was, that is a problem.

I'd check your favourite local camera shop and ask there.

Been there - done that. I may try again.

Thanks for your help.

There is at the local Office Depot a Canon 1000d/18-55IS on display
with the point-and-shoots. If you don't know what you're looking at
it is very easy to mistake for one. If you are looking for small and
light and capable, that, or its more capable sibling the 450d, might
be worth a look.

--
--
--John
to email, dial "usenet" and validate
(was jclarke at eye bee em dot net)

Thanks for all of the information. I shall look into those ranges.
Here are a few other points.

Yes, I know that I am going to have to balance criteria - the problem
is that most search pages and even camera shops think in terms of
fixed requirements. And, when juggling several criteria, it's not
like that - more "will I sacrifice P% of X for Q% of Y?" Hence my
interest in surveying the field.

500+ grammes is too heavy - I stopped carrying my 35mm because of its
weight, and it was about that - it is about 3% of a full pack weight
or a complete day's food!

I won't bother to explain why I can't use the sort of bifocals that
would allow me to use an LCD finder, but I can't. An electronic
viewfinder is fine, if it creates an image at infinity.


Regards,
Nick Maclaren.

In article , wrote:
[ ... ]
Been there - done that. I may try again.
[ ... ]

The closest I can think of is the Canon a590is.
And you can install CHDK on it!!

-AlanL

In article ,
AlanL wrote:

[ ... ]
Been there - done that. I may try again.
[ ... ]

The closest I can think of is the Canon a590is.
And you can install CHDK on it!!

Thanks to everyone, again. Some further answers:

Campkins is still around, but (if I recall) has taken over KP cameras
shop.

I am currently thinking of a Canon Powershot A710 IS or A720 IS.
I believe that there is something that had replaced the latter, but
Canon (in their usual way) have done something incomprehensible
with the code for it. They are not unusual in that!

But why don't they have their Basic Guide online? I have had to
get information that would be in that from reviews, in order to
decode the Advanced User Guide (which IS available online).


Regards,
Nick Maclaren.

On Thu, 15 Jan 2009 06:35:52 -0800, Jürgen Exner wrote:

wrote:
I.e. I need a viewfinder. No ifs, buts or maybes - I NEED one.
I have tried to use my wife's one without, and it's hopeless - I can't
see the viewfinder with glasses on and I can't see anything else
without. A fairly common problem for people of my age with short
sight.

Unfortunately, there don't seem to be many small, light, (fairly)
cheap ones with viewfinders, and I haven't found any with my other
requirements (mainly as much optical zoom as possible). So I am trying
to find the best of an unsatisfactory lot.

Yeap, manufacturers more and more removed the viewfinder to save some
money to the great annoyance of many people. I wonder if they will ever
learn that customer demand should be a consideration.


What many fail to understand is that the mfg are doing what they feel is
correct.

I like a good optical or electronic viewfinder and do agree with what you
say. But if you look at the typical snapshooter with a P&S that has a
viewfinder you will find they do not use it. They hold the camera way out
in front of them shaking all of the way and use the lcd. So the mfg now
provide large lcd and not viewfinders in most models.

That said I have read reports that the Canon SD880 is one of the best P&S
out there.



Can anyone suggest how I can find out all or almost all cameras under
250 grammes and a viewfinder? I can do the former, easily enough, but
not the latter.

Digital SLRs (still?) have viewfinders, but of course they are a
different class wrt. price and weight.

I'd check your favourite local camera shop and ask there.

jue

wrote:
I am looking for a camera, with specific (but not particularly
unusual) properties. Unfortunately, I can't cut the range down to a
number that is feasible to investigate individually, as my main sine
qua non doesn't seem to be a standard search term!

I.e. I need a viewfinder. No ifs, buts or maybes - I NEED one.
I have tried to use my wife's one without, and it's hopeless - I can't
see the viewfinder with glasses on and I can't see anything else
without. A fairly common problem for people of my age with short
sight.

Unfortunately, there don't seem to be many small, light, (fairly)
cheap ones with viewfinders, and I haven't found any with my other
requirements (mainly as much optical zoom as possible). So I am
trying to find the best of an unsatisfactory lot.

Can anyone suggest how I can find out all or almost all cameras
under 250 grammes and a viewfinder? I can do the former, easily
enough, but not the latter.


Regards,
Nick Maclaren.

Nick,

If you want a viewfinder and a wide zoom range that means DSLR. For low
cost and weight, Nikon D40:

http://www.dpreview.com/reviews/nikond40/

which is 522 grams, and for maximum zoom the Nikon 18-200mm lens:

http://www.dpreview.com/news/0511/05...on18-200vr.asp

which weighs 560 grams but isn't cheap. There are some ZLR cameras (also
called "bridge" or "super-zoom") which have an electronic viewfinder where
you put your eye to the finder just like in an SLR or optical finder
camera. The quality of some of these viewfinders is adequate only for
basic composition, but the better ones may suit your needs. I have a
Panasonic FZ5, of which the most recent version if the FZ28:

http://www.dpreview.com/news/0807/08...asonicfz28.asp

which weighs just 417 grams, and has a 27-486mm optical zoom (which is a
good coverage at both the wide-angle and telephoto ends), and has an
Electronic ViewFinder (EVF) (although the article I quote doesn't say how
many pixels are in the EVF, i.e. what quality image it might provide).

Other manufacturers also make "super-zoom" cameras - perhaps Canon and
Olympus might be worth trying in the shop to see how they handle.

You might also consider adapting a hand-held slide viewer as a sort of
"LCD" viewer for the back of an LCD-only camera.

Do Campkins and K.P. Cameras (IIRC) still exist in Cambridge?

Cheers,
David

David J Taylor wrote:
wrote:
I am looking for a camera, with specific (but not particularly
unusual) properties. Unfortunately, I can't cut the range down to a
number that is feasible to investigate individually, as my main sine
qua non doesn't seem to be a standard search term!

I.e. I need a viewfinder. No ifs, buts or maybes - I NEED one.
I have tried to use my wife's one without, and it's hopeless - I can't
see the viewfinder with glasses on and I can't see anything else
without. A fairly common problem for people of my age with short
sight.

Unfortunately, there don't seem to be many small, light, (fairly)
cheap ones with viewfinders, and I haven't found any with my other
requirements (mainly as much optical zoom as possible). So I am
trying to find the best of an unsatisfactory lot.

Can anyone suggest how I can find out all or almost all cameras
under 250 grammes and a viewfinder? I can do the former, easily
enough, but not the latter.


Regards,
Nick Maclaren.

Nick,

If you want a viewfinder and a wide zoom range that means DSLR. For low
cost and weight, Nikon D40:

http://www.dpreview.com/reviews/nikond40/

which is 522 grams, and for maximum zoom the Nikon 18-200mm lens:

http://www.dpreview.com/news/0511/05...on18-200vr.asp

which weighs 560 grams but isn't cheap. There are some ZLR cameras
(also called "bridge" or "super-zoom") which have an electronic
viewfinder where you put your eye to the finder just like in an SLR or
optical finder camera. The quality of some of these viewfinders is f
adequate only for basic composition, but the better ones may suit your
needs. I have a Panasonic FZ5, of which the most recent version if the
FZ28:

http://www.dpreview.com/news/0807/08...asonicfz28.asp

which weighs just 417 grams, and has a 27-486mm optical zoom (which is a
good coverage at both the wide-angle and telephoto ends), and has an
Electronic ViewFinder (EVF) (although the article I quote doesn't say
how many pixels are in the EVF, i.e. what quality image it might provide).

Other manufacturers also make "super-zoom" cameras - perhaps Canon and
Olympus might be worth trying in the shop to see how they handle.

You might also consider adapting a hand-held slide viewer as a sort of
"LCD" viewer for the back of an LCD-only camera.

Do Campkins and K.P. Cameras (IIRC) still exist in Cambridge?

Cheers,
David
I think you are going to have to make a decision on what is most
important. Decent zoom lenses or less that 250 grams. A decent zoom
lenses is made of glass (The new Olympus SP=590UZ has 14 Lenses in 11
Groups, 4 Aspherical Lenses) and all of that glass is going to add
weight. Also in the better zoom you have the weight of the larger
batteries.

I currently have a an Olympus C-740 it is DSLR 10X zoom and weighs about
290g. I have bifocal glasses and have no problem using it.

Personally for landscape picture I like the zoom lenses and am willing
to accept more weight.