[Leica] Re: Viewfinderless P&S cameras

[lrzeitlin at optonline.net (Lawrence Zeitlin)]

On Jun 4, 2007, at 5:49 PM, lug-request@leica-users.org wrote:

>>> The Fuji has no viewfinder and I hate framing
> at arms length, I am sure all of the high iso gain is wasted in the
> higher shutter speeds needed to avoid camera shake using a camera
> this way.<<
>
> Excellent point, and something I hadn't even considered. You never  
> year
> that mentioned in any of the reviews (and I've read a few). But it  
> makes
> sense.

Those of us with less than perfect eyesight have a real problem with  
viewfinderless cameras. If you are nearsighted, you can hold the  
camera fairly close to your eyes and have no trouble with the LCD,  
but when you look up, the scene you are photographing is blurred and  
fuzzy. If you are farsighted you have no trouble viewing the scene  
but as you age, you will have to get extensions to your arms or else  
you can't see the LCD. If you wear bifocals, as I do, you will find  
your head bobbing up and down like a pigeon as you alternate between  
the LCD and the scene. When using my daughter's very good but very  
small Sony P&S I find that the best strategy is to simply set the  
lens to its widest field of view and generally point the camera in  
the direction of the scene of interest. Sort of like shooting a  
shotgun. Usually I get some sort of useable picture.

Canon seems to be the only maker supporting optical viewfinders on  
most of its line but even they have given way to the requirement for  
the smallest and slimmest viewfinderless cameras on some newer  
models. The two best optical viewfinders on the P&S cameras I have  
access to are on the oldest and cheapest cameras, the 1.5 Mp Leica  
Digilux Zoom (a six year old rebadged Fuji 1700 Zoom) and my wife's  
Kodak Z730, an excellent quality but really cheap ($129) 5 Mp camera  
intended for beginners. Cost seems to be no impediment to including  
decent optical viewfinders. Fashion does.

Larry Z