Canikon MUST switch to EVFs

chlamchowder wrote:

I strongly disagree with this. People do a lot of research before dumping out a lot of money to get a DSLR. While name familiarity is one factor, it definitely isn't the only factor. Part of why some young people buy DSLRs is to get an optical finder.

Again, I disagree your belief that those who know about both OVFs and EVFs are mainly old, unless high school and college students fit you definition of old. Most of them probably haven't seen the newest EVFs, but if they heard all the internet hype about how that 2.4M dot unit is almost as good as an optical finder and then proceeded to try it out, I think they'll be sorely disappointed.

When I showed them, the NEX-7/a65/a77 didn't exist yet, so they obviously haven't seen the newest EVF. However, I doubt their conclusions would have changed. I've looked through the finder on all three of those cameras, and while the EVF is a slight improvement in terms of clarity, it still can't match an optical finder. That 2.4M dot EVF really is overhyped, IMO. I don't understand how people can begin to compare it to an optical finder's clarity and DR, let alone speed.

I don't doubt that EVFs will continue to evolve, but it'll take a very, very long time (in some areas, infinite time) before they catch up to OVFs in those respects:

• Lag time: waiting for a frame to expose, reading a low res frame off the sensor, processing it, and refreshing the EVF display will always take longer than just having light go directly to a focusing screen.

• Resolution: OVFs are limited by the ground glass/lens. While it's conceivable that an EVF could come close, it'll need a rather massive jump in pixel density that we're not seeing.

• Live view between shots in a burst: To do this, the sensor has to be reset, and low res frames have to be read off for the EVF before the next shot. To do this quickly, the sensor has to be very fast. In many cameras, the max framerate is there not because of processing power, but because data can't be read off the sensor any faster. Sensor makers will have to abandon the megapixel race and pick up a frames-off-sensor race before this can improve. Oh, and extra processing power has to be used to deliver live view between frames in a burst, and that processing power can't be put to other uses like increasing the framerate.

• Battery life: show me an EVF design that can work without a power supply