Doug Kerr
Well-known member
In a recent thread on the Sony A7, Jerome Marot said:
In my Panasonic DMC-FZ200, the overall luminance of the EVF image is quite comparable to that of the scene itself, over a wide range of scene luminance - nighttime through full sun.
The clinker is its lack of what we can call dynamic range: It is hard to see the detail in the darker portions of the scene, regardless of the overall scene luminance.
The other shortcoming is that VF parameter that is never spoken of: the VF image size.
If we have a camera with a full-frame 35-mm format size (43.3 mm sensor) for which the viewfinder, with a lens focal length of 50 mm in effect, exhibits a viewfinder image magnification of 1.0, the diagonal subtense of the viewfinder image (the metric of "VF image size") is about 47 degrees (for any focal length, of course - the VF image size does not vary with focal length).
But in my DMC-FZ200, the diagonal subtense of the viewfinder image is about 19.5 degrees. Its linear size is about 40% that of the viewfinder image on the first camera.
And that is the greatest cause of difficulty with that EVF.
Size matters.
Best regards,
Doug
Having used the NEX-7, I came to positively hate these electronic viewfinders. I warn you: they look more usable in a shop than under the sun or in dark places.
In my Panasonic DMC-FZ200, the overall luminance of the EVF image is quite comparable to that of the scene itself, over a wide range of scene luminance - nighttime through full sun.
The clinker is its lack of what we can call dynamic range: It is hard to see the detail in the darker portions of the scene, regardless of the overall scene luminance.
The other shortcoming is that VF parameter that is never spoken of: the VF image size.
If we have a camera with a full-frame 35-mm format size (43.3 mm sensor) for which the viewfinder, with a lens focal length of 50 mm in effect, exhibits a viewfinder image magnification of 1.0, the diagonal subtense of the viewfinder image (the metric of "VF image size") is about 47 degrees (for any focal length, of course - the VF image size does not vary with focal length).
But in my DMC-FZ200, the diagonal subtense of the viewfinder image is about 19.5 degrees. Its linear size is about 40% that of the viewfinder image on the first camera.
And that is the greatest cause of difficulty with that EVF.
Size matters.
Best regards,
Doug