Reading this thread I'm reminded of the Rowan Atkinson Barclaycard advert of some years ago where Rowan attempts to communicate with a Tuareg rug seller. His aide says "I didn't know you were fluent, Sir" Rowan replies "We're both fluent, but sadly in different languages"
That perhaps illustrates the difficulty of communicating certain concepts which may be complex because of:
a) some general misunderstanding of the differences and effects of EVF lag and shutter lag, not to mention human reaction time;
b) an understandable defence attitude of "I've got a mirrorless camera with an EVF and I've managed to take perfectly good action shots with it, therefore the EVF lag problem does not exist"
If we take shutter lag and human reaction out of the equation, because all cameras of all types are subject to those and because the human brain and experience is able to compensate for them, we are left with EVF lag (which on the latest EVF displays is small but still exists) versus an optical finder in which there is no delay at all (actually not quite true but we're talking about the speed of light over a very short distance so in practical terms there is no delay).
Now if you are panning smoothly with both systems and as long as the angular movement is not too quick, then both systems are probably fine. An OVF is better but an EVF is probably fine for many.
But if the subject is random or extremely fast (in angular terms rather than, say, observing from the ground a jet aircraft at 30,000 ft which may be moving at 600mph but which appears to be moving quite slowly), then an EVF can prove difficult.
Smooth panning will be fine for the jet aircraft example above but may not work well on a subject like a tennis player from court side at Wimbledon because their movements are jerky and erratic even if in real terms they are not moving that fast.
For an erratic subject you need to be able to see the subject in the viewfinder where it
now is, not where
it was. And if the subject movement is erratic, smooth panning in one direction to keep the image within the frame of an EVF will not work since the subject may actually change or even reverse direction quite rapidly.
Humans can compensate for various types of lag, as do clay pigeon shooters by 'leading' and sports photographers by anticipating the 'point of action'. But in both disciplines the shooter or photographer is able to see the subject in
real time. However add viewfinder lag into the mix and absence of being able to "see in real time" can become a real issue.
wish I didn’t have to work so much I’m missing out on all the fun and experiments. A mate shoots birds with a v15 pf300 he loves it and his images are first class. He prefers it over his d500 with a 300 vr2 2.8.
