Canikon MUST switch to EVFs

And that is a very important point to consider. Currently, EVF cameras have about half the battery life of equivalent DSLR models, if not less. So, consider a situation where I would normally just carry my DSLR and a spare battery. To get roughly the same endurance with an EVF camera, I'd have to carry two batteries that I plan on using, in addition to two spare batteries. In addition, I'd have to remember to keep all of them charged. Most of us don't have battery chargers with more than two slots. Charging four batteries would be rather inconvenient.

And let's consider what happens if I forget to recharge the batteries. With an OVF camera, I can compose and focus with the camera off, only turning the camera on to take shots. That can really help to pull every last shot I can get off the battery. With an EVF camera, simply looking through the camera drains a ton of power, with the sensor, processor, and EVF all powered up and running to deliver a preview.

This might not be important for people who sit at home all day and only use the camera once in a while, but we should recognize that there are also people who take pictures while traveling, or have to cover long events without opportunities to charge batteries. Traveling light (meaning not having to carry twice the number of batteries) and not having to worry as much about running out of power are both desirable benefits.

There are also other arguments against EVFs. EVFs generally don't match the light level of the surrounding environment, so they can be hard to see in bright daylight, and will ruin your night vision when shooting in low light. OVFs are also more responsive. When shooting fast action in continuous mode, no current EVF implementation can give you live view between frames once you go faster than 3 fps (and sports shooters often like to shoot above 3 fps). The 'blackout time' from an EVF is also longer than the blackout time from a DSLR finder. In low light, many EVF implementations give a noisy, laggy view that shows a lot of blur when the camera is moved around.

Finally, I don't quite see the need for an EVF, since DSLRs already offer a lot of EVF benefits through live view on the rear screen. On DSLRs, CDAF is getting faster, manual focus aids (magnification, peaking) are becoming more widespread, and of course, info displays are getting better. Therefore, to me, the EVF seems more like a compromise that's made when incorporating a good TTL optical finder into the camera design would be impossible. EVFs don't offer the speed, responsiveness, power savings, or clear view of an optical finder, but still give the user an eye level viewing option.

Having an EVF is better than having no viewfinder at all, but given the choice, I'll still take a camera with a good optical finder.