My daughter has asked me to recommend a camera for her partner. It will be used to take photographs of food, landscapes, travel, wildlife and the family. Although they have some desirable features ( light weight, small size, good image quality) I am loathe to recommend a CSC because of the electronic viewfinder. I have a Fujifilm X-T10 and my Best Beloved has a Fujifilm X-30. We use them as take-along cameras when we are out and about, not for anything serious, although both have returned terrific images on occasion, as you will have seen in some of my posts here. And bear in mind that the EVF on both these Fujifilm cameras is the same unit and arguably the best EVF out there.
The requirement to photograph food properly ( her partner is in the hospitality business) requires a good viewfinder image, in my opinion. I just get frustrated when I try to do so using the X-T10. I cannot see the depth of focus or the sharpness properly using the EVF, and the image on the LCD is just too small. The same applies to wildlife - I struggle to shoot birds, especially quick moving ones in flight or on water, using a tele-zoom lens, with the EVF of the X-T10 and find the LCD totally useless for this.
For family pictures and travel, the little Fuji is marvelous and even for the occasional landscape, but otherwise I can't imagine how I could do without the "proper" viewfinders of my DSLR cameras and the clear, real-time image that they provide.
Is it just me, or are there others out there who share my view?
I am quite happy with the EVF on my DiMage and FinePix S9500. For me they do every bit as well as the optical viewfinder on my Nikons. But then again, I never use the DoF button on the Nikon, anyway.
Ask yourself, "What's most important for the final image?".
I like the real view through the optical viewfinder of a DSLR, but I also like using an EVF. When focusing using the latter on my Sony A6000, it gives a clear view of the image, magnified while focusing, and with focus-peaking. The sharpness is clear to see, as is the depth of field, and the DoF is also shown up clearly by the focus-peaking effect. Another advantage of the EVF is that, when changing parameters in M Mode, or when applying exposure compensation in P, Av or Tv Modes, the appearance of the image changes to indicate the change in exposure.
Would it be feasible to spend a day with your daughter's partner, allowing him to have the experience of shooting with your DSLR and with your CSC, so that he can see for himself the benefits and disadvantages of both, and then make his own informed decision?
[quote='MrB' pid='107170' dateline='1462201184'
Would it be feasible to spend a day with your daughter's partner, allowing him to have the experience of shooting with your DSLR and with your CSC, so that he can see for himself the benefits and disadvantages of both, and then make his own informed decision?
Cheers.
Philip
[/quote]
Philip, it would not be an "informed" decision. Only one based on one limited experience and no knowledge. Further down the line, something like school sports may raise problems, especially with burst shooting. I have tried 5 fps through an EVF and it just doesn't work for me.
(May 2, 2016, 15:26)GrahamS Wrote: Philip, it would not be an "informed" decision. Only one based on one limited experience and no knowledge. Further down the line, something like school sports may raise problems, especially with burst shooting. I have tried 5 fps through an EVF and it just doesn't work for me.
Graham, I have to state that I am most surprised and truly disappointed by your reply. I would have expected that a day spent with you in practical photography would have been far from a limited experience, but more a valuable and most informative one, allowing the person to gain much knowledge of the two different systems by actually using them in various shooting scenarios. It would be easy to include burst shooting in the practical experience, another aspect in which I fail to see a problem with using an EVF.
I've had EVF cameras (and still have an EVF Fuji) in the past and for Landscape, portrait photography I got on okay with them. For sports, nature anything moving fast I just did not like them. the view lagged behind the action and I found them very hard to see in bright sunlight, even with the camera slapped hard against my face.
And while EVF technology has improved I still feel it isn't fast enough for action shots.
One field where it does have an advantage is while shooting infrared.
(May 2, 2016, 15:26)GrahamS Wrote: Philip, it would not be an "informed" decision. Only one based on one limited experience and no knowledge. Further down the line, something like school sports may raise problems, especially with burst shooting. I have tried 5 fps through an EVF and it just doesn't work for me.
Graham, I have to state that I am most surprised and truly disappointed by your reply. I would have expected that a day spent with you in practical photography would have been far from a limited experience, but more a valuable and most informative one, allowing the person to gain much knowledge of the two different systems by actually using them in various shooting scenarios. It would be easy to include burst shooting in the practical experience, another aspect in which I fail to see a problem with using an EVF.
Cheers.
Philip
Philip, I am disappointed that you are disappointed in my reply. My daughter lives north of Sidney, Australia. I live in London. Her nearest photo store is a two hour journey away, and she want's to keep her intentions secret from the family. If she did find a convenient store with a Fujifilm X-T10 or an Olympus OM-D EM5 and a Sony A68 as well as a Nikon D5300 and a D7100 for comparison, she would be at the mercy of the salesperson as she does not have sufficient experience to make an "informed" decision under those circumstances.
Things are not always as simple as they would seem.
(May 3, 2016, 09:05)EnglishBob Wrote: I've had EVF cameras (and still have an EVF Fuji) in the past and for Landscape, portrait photography I got on okay with them. For sports, nature anything moving fast I just did not like them. the view lagged behind the action and I found them very hard to see in bright sunlight, even with the camera slapped hard against my face.
And while EVF technology has improved I still feel it isn't fast enough for action shots.
One field where it does have an advantage is while shooting infrared.
Craig, you make my point exactly! Sports will be quite important to this person, whose only photographic experience to date is with an iPhone!
(May 3, 2016, 12:21)GrahamS Wrote: Things are not always as simple as they would seem.
I was trying to be helpful, as I always aim to do on this forum. In this case, things could have been made a lot simpler if you had given that information sooner in the thread, preferably in the original post, so that I would not have wasted my time (and yours) in composing irrelevant replies.
Cheers.
Philip
(This post was last modified: May 3, 2016, 15:46 by MrB.)
