No, the problem is you can't manual focus on such a screen. That
is why Optical View finders aren't going anywhere. At full res on
a computer monitor, you can focus it. On that screen, it will be
as bad as any EVF camera. Go grab a Sony R1 and try manual
focusing that. Totally worthless.
Perhaps you didn't try hard enough?
Look, it depends on the camera, on the quality of the EVF or monitor display, and how that display is implemented.
The Konica Minolta A2 has a very fine EVF. It can be magnified and the enlarged zone steered to any part of the frame. Manual focusing is then done 'fly by wire'.
It isn't exactly what you'd call 'fast', requiring a bit of button pushiing, but it is very positive and pleasant to use. Rather like using a loupe on the ground glass of large format camera, only better, because it is not dim, is not upside-down, and DoF preview works at all apertures...... (also you don't have to put a black cloth over your head!)
OK. That's how it is through the [tiltable] EVF of the A2, but the same thing CAN be done on its [tiltable] LCD.
That LCD is only small compared with this latest Canon, but manual focusing is not hard, even with my old eyes, and that's because of what happens as the image details sharpen at the point of best focus......
As the LCD image hits focus the details in the scene kind of "scintillate" against the matrix of screen pixels. This effect is quite noticeable -- it can be seen to 'snap' in and out at ordinary reading distances -- at least, as long as I have the right glasses on, it can!
Scintillate?
Well, you could say the image "sparkles" locally, where it is sharp, and it is the actual pixel structure that makes this happen. Funnily enough, this also is analogous to the focusing of a sheet film camera, although in that case it is the granular texture of the grindings in the glass that do the scintillation against the subject/image sharp textures.
This side effect of the LCD is quite noticeable, and I use it all the time. Although I have never seen it mentioned in these forums, I'm pretty sure other people with live view EVFs and LCDs must be doing the same.... maybe even those with Sony R1s ?? (shrugs).
And maybe this Canon will do it too ??
My point is that "worthless" is a term I associate with opinions reached with too little time of acquaintance to find out what the true "worths" are.
Neither are traditional SLR viewing systems THAT good, these days.
Most OVFs fitted to reasonably priced dSLRs aren't a patch on my old Nikkormat of 30 years ago. The typical OVFs of today (leaving aside the swanky stuff) represent a backward step for me.....
.... where the EVF of my A2 is just a sideways one.
It is a shame the A2 kind of digital camera is no longer being developed, but maybe the dSLR is about to evolve into something similar [??] And it could be that this new Canon is a sign that such evolution should be taken seriously.
--
Regards,
Baz
