[Leica] Re: Viewfinderless P&S cameras

[don.dory at gmail.com (Don Dory)]

Larry,
The Canon G7 has a pretty good viewfinder, as do the Sony W series at a
lower price point.  There are good choices out there if you just take a look
in a well stocked store.  It is important to feel the cameras and run
through the menus as camera design is not fixed in stone.  Designers are
still working through how best to interface with humans on these little
beasties.  Even though I am pretty much all M8, I can still with a straight
face tell you to pick up a small film P/S for limited casual use.  Cost will
be around $100 for a good model, film is still widely available for a couple
of bucks a roll and scanning said roll can be about $5-$9.  If you only
shoot five or six rolls a year with said camera you will be better off
monetarily with film.

On 6/7/07, Lawrence Zeitlin <lrzeitlin@optonline.net> wrote:
>
>
> 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
>
>
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>



-- 
Don
don.dory@gmail.com