I have owned and used several EVF cameras, including the A2 and R1 (the two best EVF cameras around ... and which i still own and use). While I don't hold out much hope for an EVF of the quality required to replace a single lens reflex camera's viewfinder, they are useful cameras in their own right.
They are not SLR cameras, if only by definition. There is no mirror or beam splitter in the light path, the "reflex" part of single lens reflex. If, however, you were to design a camera using a high quality EVF as an SLR replacement, you'd be throwing most of the advantages away by adopting any current SLR lens mount. You would be better off designing a new lens mount that allowed the rear of the lens to get as close to the sensor plane as possible and thereby allow more room for light path correcting elements so that the lens would be best optimized for a digital sensor, with as close to orthogonal light path as possible. This implies a whole new line of lenses and a very different camera from anything we've seen to date. It would be interesting to see Pentax produce it as something separate from their SLR line, but I suspect it will take a lot to build something like this that is convincingly marketable. Sony is closest to it with the acquisition of Konica Minolta and the R1 in their portfolio already. If such a camera were developed and of the appropriate quality spec on all counts, like the current R1 but with an interchangeable lens system and far better quality EVF/LCD, I would be interested in one. But I still don't see the design paradigm as competing with the DSLR design of today: it's more complement than compete with different strengths and weaknesses. The major advantages of an all-electronic imaging system are the possibility of highly corrected lenses for the digital sensor, less vibration through the lack of a moving mirror, and a very flexible viewfinder positioning system to handle all kinds of situations where the fixed geometry of SLRs' optical viewfinder system can get in the way. Godfrey On Sep 19, 2006, at 6:34 AM, Takeshita K wrote: >> Nice how the lack of a reflex mirrorbox thins out the M8. > > Not wishing to stir up any controversy, but above begs another > question. > I wonder what other folks think about EVF which will eliminate the > mirror box, and give lens designers a tremendous freedom in designing > SLR lenses, particularly wider angle ones. It will also eliminate > the "ugly" gables from the top of traditional SLRs, giving all sorts > of freedom in body design too. > Yes, I understand all the arguments that the optical view finder is > the essence of SLR and so forth (SLRs are often judged by their > viewfinder performance). > However, I once peeped through an EVF of one of the K/M models > (DiMage A2 or A200 or some such) and was surprised to find how clear > the image was (I know the poor EVF's of many P&S digicams which are > only useful for the composition). > But if the resolution is at least 1mp and the refresh rate is fast > enough, I would be very interested in it. It can be a 100% view area, > brighter (it could even be illuminated under certain conditions), and > give all sorts of creative options such as instant magnification > etc. Most of all, it is going to give a live view in SLRs. > > Maybe Pentax might be the first one to adopt a superior EVF for > K1D ;-). Then again, they are still too conservative in adopting too > radical a feature as a pioneer, unlike their past. -- PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List [email protected] http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net
