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#11
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Viewfinders on DSLR's
In article , Steve B says...
Pentax sell a x1.2 viewfinder magnifier. With that on, my K100D VF is a fair bit larger than a full frame Canon 5D VF. They are all rubbish though compared with an old Pentax KM film SLR I still have which is like going to the cinema compared with a TV. Rubbish compared to what? APS DLSRs or full frame DSLRs? What exactly is the problem - lack of a split screen focus perhaps? -- Alfred Molon ------------------------------ Olympus 50X0, 8080, E3X0, E4X0, E5X0 and E3 forum at http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/MyOlympus/ http://myolympus.org/ photo sharing site |
#12
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Viewfinders on DSLR's
"Alfred Molon" wrote in message ... In article , Steve B says... Pentax sell a x1.2 viewfinder magnifier. With that on, my K100D VF is a fair bit larger than a full frame Canon 5D VF. They are all rubbish though compared with an old Pentax KM film SLR I still have which is like going to the cinema compared with a TV. Rubbish compared to what? APS DLSRs or full frame DSLRs? What exactly is the problem - lack of a split screen focus perhaps? -- Alfred Molon ------------------------------ Olympus 50X0, 8080, E3X0, E4X0, E5X0 and E3 forum at http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/MyOlympus/ http://myolympus.org/ photo sharing site APS-C and full frame DSLR viewfinders are all rubbish as in very small compared with old film SLR viewfinders, at least the few I've used many moons ago, one of which I still have, the Pentax KM. |
#13
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Viewfinders on DSLR's
In article , Steve B says...
APS-C and full frame DSLR viewfinders are all rubbish as in very small compared with old film SLR viewfinders, at least the few I've used many moons ago, one of which I still have, the Pentax KM. And why would viewfinders of full-frame DSLRs which cost thousands of Euros be so inferior? There should be enough budget for a decent viewfinder in a camera which costs 4000 Euro. -- Alfred Molon ------------------------------ Olympus 50X0, 8080, E3X0, E4X0, E5X0 and E3 forum at http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/MyOlympus/ http://myolympus.org/ photo sharing site |
#14
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Viewfinders on DSLR's
C J Campbell wrote:
On 2008-05-21 10:23:52 -0700, Alfred Molon said: In article , dosferatu says... Just getting into looking at DSLR's. Looking thru, anyway. So DSLR's, I assume, don't have focusing screens? Is that why looking thru the viewfinder everything is in focus? Do any DSLR's have Depth of field preview thru the viewfinder or do you have to go to the lcd display? What is Depth of field preview ? When you look through the viewfinder or on the LCD of a DSLR, the lens is wide open at its largest aperture. This allows the clearest and brightest view with the least depth of field for composing and focusing the picture. However, it does not show the actual depth of field that you are going to get, which can be critical. Most DSLRs have a button mounted by the lens which, if you press it, stops the lens down to the selected aperture. The viewfinder becomes darker because less light is entering the camera, but you can see what parts of the image will appear shop in the final shot. The depth of field preview button on my Nikon D300 does not work when Live View is turned on. For live view on the D300, the "viewed" f-stop is the f-stop set when Lv mode is entered. Changing the f-stop when the LV display is on changes the metering for an exposure, but leaves the aperture unchanged for the display until liveview is exited and re-entered (including by taking a picture) So, the DOF preview doesn't work because the aperture might already be stopped down when entering LV mode. Sorry if I'm explaining the self-evident. I find LV very useful for tripod work, where you can achieve absolute critical focus using LV with the lens set at maximum aperture, then preview DOF accurately on the LCD by stopping down and resetting LV, checking at up to 10x view if needed. |
#15
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Viewfinders on DSLR's
"Alfred Molon" wrote in message ... In article , Steve B says... APS-C and full frame DSLR viewfinders are all rubbish as in very small compared with old film SLR viewfinders, at least the few I've used many moons ago, one of which I still have, the Pentax KM. And why would viewfinders of full-frame DSLRs which cost thousands of Euros be so inferior? There should be enough budget for a decent viewfinder in a camera which costs 4000 Euro. -- No idea, it's something I've wondered about myself. |
#16
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Viewfinders on DSLR's
"tomm42" wrote in message ... On May 22, 5:22 am, Alfred Molon wrote: In article , David J Taylor says... Yes, if you pay more you may get a better viewfinder, but even that of the Nikon D40 is eminently usable. Try looking through the viewfinders for yourself. I remember briefly using a couple of years ago a Nikon D70. And wow, what a viewfinder. Recently I checked instead the Sony 350 and the Pentax K20D and was very unimpressed. It's good that these two cameras come with live preview, so you can use that for framing. -- Alfred Molon ------------------------------ Olympus 50X0, 8080, E3X0, E4X0, E5X0 and E3 forum athttp://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/MyOlympus/http://myolympus.org/photo sharing site I have a D70, and the viewfinder is its worst feature. It is like looking down a tunnel, but eventually your brain gets used to it, and it then seems Ok. UNTIL you look through the VF on a more recent model, and then its back to - "I need a new Camera" Roy G |
#17
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Viewfinders on DSLR's
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#18
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Viewfinders on DSLR's
In article , Alfred Molon
writes In article , Steve B says... What is Depth of field preview ? Press the DOF preview button and the aperture goes from wide open, as used for focusing and framing the shot, to your selected aperture. The VF will now 'preview' what's really in focus/not in focus at that aperture and focal length. The main problem is that it will get dark in the VF at small apertures. Oops... and there are DSLRs which cannot do this? Actually, most dSLRs on the market today cannot do this, at least they cannot do it with any accuracy, unlike the SLRs of old. I thought it's a basic feature of DSLRs that they will show you in the viewfinder what is in focus and what is not in focus. How else otherwise could you creatively compose the shot by choosing the right amount of background blur? That is/was the basic principle. However, to get an accurate view of what is in and out of focus at the shooting aperture you need to have a highly diffusing screen - a coarse ground glass screen. The downside of that is that the viewfinder image is very dark, because light from the lens is scattered pretty much uniformly in all directions and only a small proportion of that reaches the eyepiece. Without a ground glass screen, all of the light reaches the eyepiece, at least within a certain field of view of the image, resulting in a bright image but now everything appears in focus. SLR viewfinder design has always been a compromise between the two conflicting requirements of a bright image and accurate DoF preview. There is only so much light that comes through the lens, and it can't do everything. In the old days (pre-1990), the tradeoff was made towards the accurate DoF representation. However, since AF became more common on SLRs, the tradeoff has shifted towards the brighter image, because the viewfinder is no longer used for focussing. As a consequence of the demand for brighter SLR viewfinders, DoF preview accuracy has reduced, to the point where it is very misleading these days in almost all SLRs, and pretty useless in many. The actual DoF is always much less than appears in the viewfinder with modern cameras - unless they have interchangeable focus screens and one is available that has been optimised for manual focus. -- Kennedy Yes, Socrates himself is particularly missed; A lovely little thinker, but a bugger when he's ****ed. Python Philosophers (replace 'nospam' with 'kennedym' when replying) |
#19
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Viewfinders on DSLR's
In article , Kennedy McEwen
says... In the old days (pre-1990), the tradeoff was made towards the accurate DoF representation. However, since AF became more common on SLRs, the tradeoff has shifted towards the brighter image, because the viewfinder is no longer used for focussing. As a consequence of the demand for brighter SLR viewfinders, DoF preview accuracy has reduced, to the point where it is very misleading these days in almost all SLRs, and pretty useless in many. The actual DoF is always much less than appears in the viewfinder with modern cameras - unless they have interchangeable focus screens and one is available that has been optimised for manual focus. Thanks. So the only way to check depth of field accurately would be to take one shot and examine it on the LCD screen (zooming into it)? -- Alfred Molon ------------------------------ Olympus 50X0, 8080, E3X0, E4X0, E5X0 and E3 forum at http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/MyOlympus/ http://myolympus.org/ photo sharing site |
#20
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Viewfinders on DSLR's
Alfred Molon wrote:
In article , Kennedy McEwen says... In the old days (pre-1990), the tradeoff was made towards the accurate DoF representation. However, since AF became more common on SLRs, the tradeoff has shifted towards the brighter image, because the viewfinder is no longer used for focussing. As a consequence of the demand for brighter SLR viewfinders, DoF preview accuracy has reduced, to the point where it is very misleading these days in almost all SLRs, and pretty useless in many. The actual DoF is always much less than appears in the viewfinder with modern cameras - unless they have interchangeable focus screens and one is available that has been optimised for manual focus. Thanks. So the only way to check depth of field accurately would be to take one shot and examine it on the LCD screen (zooming into it)? Really? I never considered that even in the oldest of days an SLR screen DOF preview was for looking what was in focus ... it was for looking at what was really our of focus, to get the proper subject- background isolation. That still works fine on my Canon 30D. Doug McDonald |
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