G11 is great except for the viewfinder

Of all the things to neglect when designing a camera of any price, why the viewfinder??

My G11 optical viewfinder needs a 0.8x wide-angle adapter lens glued to the front. then the camera would be great. It would be greater than the Fujifilm GA645Zi.

This viewfinder design is the absolute lowest quality tool imaginable that would still qualify as a Canon product. Yes, it is passably centered with the digital image throughout the entire zoom range. Yes, parallax is fairly compensated for. No, a 77% view is not in any way acceptable for a camera designed for and marketed to real photographers. No excuses this is 2009...almost 2010.

What really irritates me is that the design incorporates a flimsy little black plastic mask which provides the crop...and that little frame could easily have been made bigger. I'm wondering if the view wouldn't be accurate if the mask were removed entirely.

Unable to modify the insides of this camera as I am, I can only wonder if there's a clever way to modify the outside of the camera without occupying the hotshoe which I need to use for strobes.

There is a company called Optx that manufactures adhesive reading lenses for scuba masks and safety glasses, etc. Perhaps they could be coaxed into solving this for us and the many other OVF-using digitographers. http://www.stickonlenses.net . I'll call them tomorrow.

-–Jonathan