Finding the View and Zooming It Too

I've watched the furor over the matter of the "missing" optical viewfinder (OVF) on the Olympus E-P1—not only here but all over the web—with bemused curiosity. Maybe I just understand camera design a bit more thoroughly than the average bear, but, to me, it was a given from the very first that a Micro 4/3 camera wouldn't have an OVF. At least, not a built-in, all-purpose one. Not a surprise.

It's a case of classic opposing design parameters. My standard example of an opposing design parameter is a sailboat hull. You can have a hull that goes fast through the water, or you can have a hull that holds a lot of cargo. But you can't optimize for both at the same time. The more one parameter is optimized, the more the other is compromised. For a given amount of speed you can try to optimize capacity, and for a given amount of capacity you can try to optimize speed, but to say you want both to be optimized at the same time is oxymoronic, like saying you want long hair but you want it really short.

The situation is a little more complicated in the case of an OVF on a camera, because we're looking at more than just two parameters, but we should at least ascribe the problem to its real cause: the trouble is the popularity of zoom lenses.

Once you decide to provide interchangeable lenses, then you must provide a zoom. Photographers functioned well for 7/8ths of the medium's history without zooms to speak of, but now most people want them, and if a company wants to sell cameras then it has to provide a zoom or zooms. And once the decision is made to provide a zoom lens, then any non-TTL (through the lens) OVF is out. It's not just that a good non-TTL zooming optical finder is difficult to implement, and it's not just that any such finder would be large and expensive. The problem is that the physical bulk of lens gets in the way of the finder's view.

Even on a rangefinder Leica, some of the more recent premium primes are large enough to block a significant portion of the view. The picture above is a quick shot taken with a D700 and 28mm of the view through a Leica M7 .58 viewfinder. The gray bars are the framelines (they're brighter to the eye). Despite the "ventilated" lens hood on the 35mm Summilux ASPH lens, the lens blocks the lower right-hand portion of the field of view. (That strange-looking structure in the yard is a "square foot garden," in case you're wondering. I have a bad back, so I built it up in the air. Keeps the durn rabbits out, too.)

Zooms are bigger than prime lenses, even fast premium Leica primes. Big zoom, small camera? A built-in optical finder in a small or even medium-sized non-TTL camera is going to be blocked by the lens.

So the camera's designers have a couple of choices. They can stick to a single-focal-length fixed lens, in which case an OVF makes good sense. They can stick with a set of moderate primes (i.e., no superwides or super-teles), in which case they can still design a built-in OVF (that's the classic rangefinder solution), although it would be considerably more complicated, and compromises start to enter into it. Or they can dispense with the OVF altogether in favor of an electronic viewfinder (EVF) (this is what the Panasonic G1's designers opted for). Or they can dispense with the built-in OVF and provide a clip-on type suited only for one lens of one focal length (the Oympus E-P1 solution, so far).

But all this garment-rending and teeth-gnashing about the E-P1 not having an OVF is just...misguided. Mistaken. Not gettin' it. Just try imagining it—what is it you want? How would it work? What would the problems be? Try imagining it, and you'll see. You want handling like a Porsche or hauling like a semi? You can't have both at once.

The trouble is that the market as a whole demands its zooms. To murder the old saying about having your cake and eating it too, you can't find the view and zoom it too.

Mike

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That durn delicious zoom

Comments

[steve jacobs]

I'm a happy Panasonic G1 user and I must confess that a VF of some sort is essential for me.

One compromise would be to offer an optional EVF that sits on the hotshoe. There is at least one other such camera on the market.

That way, everybody could be satisfied with the ep-1

[Hoainam]

OT: Whatcha got growing in the garden?

[Dennis]

An OVF on a fixed lens is fine (Sigma DP-x). TTL OVF (DSLR) is obviously fine. But an OVF just doesn't seem like the right solution for a camera like this. They're all about (electronic) live view off the sensor. LCD, articulating LCD, EVF, or any other variation on LV you can think of.

Maybe Canon or Nikon or someone else will release an APS-C fixed lens "compact" with an OVF mated to the lens.

[Mike Johnston]

"OT: Whatcha got growing in the garden?"

So far, spinach, carrots, leeks, onions, three kinds of lettuce, broccoli, bush beans, cucumbers, and a squash plant that is failing to thrive (which is like planting a dandelion and having it die on you).

I'm not a talented gardener, and I got these things going very late this year. It's just that I've been meaning to build this thing for three years or so, and every year I wait too long (because it's cold and unpleasant in the late winter and I don't want to be outside doing carpentry) and then I don't do it at all. This year I figured I'd just build the darn thing and then at least I'd be ready for next year. As far as this year's crop, I joke that I'll probably get about 8 salads out of it, each of which will have cost $30.

Mike

[aizan]

dang it, you're right. i'll just cross olympus off my list then...*grumble*

is anyone likely to make fixed prime lens aps-c cameras, aside from sigma? maybe pentax, nikon, canon, ricoh?

[Miserere]

The E-P1 is a clear example of building a camera that tries to please everyone. We all should realise by now that's impossible. Personally, I'd be happy with an optical VF with grid lines (like a rangefinder), and many others would to. But many more wouldn't.

Leica is a company that has concentrated on trying to please as few people as possible. As such, they've succeeded, but the admission price for those few, happy people is high.

When Olympus releases the E-P2 (with a VF, going by the comments Olympus's Akira Watanabe made), I can guarantee the bitcherati will be out in full force again. When this happens, please point everyone to today's post, Mike.

[Jayson Merryfield]

Thanks for the lucid post Mike. I feel like the internet has been awash in hand-wringing and dismay over the EP-1. The Olympus forums over at DPReview (and pretty much any other photography site) are simply filthy with people with no hands-on time with the camera decrying it, vs. people vigorously defending it with an equally ludicrous lack of hands-on time. Almost makes me want to give up the internet for a while, until someone flicks on the lights and the crazies scuttle back under the fridge.

Here's a question you haven't answered yet, and it's one that really shouldn't require hands-on time with an actual EP-1 to be able to land an answer. Would you be content with a DMD that lacked an OVF?

Frankly, I would.

[Norris Lurker]

I'm trying to come to terms with back-panel LCDs but it's not going well. My aging eyes just focus a lot better at one meter, but my arms aren't that long. (And I'm already quite incapable of drinking coffee, so there's no use trying to evolve longer ones.) I'd settle for a decent EVF; I might even settle for a bad one.

[Stefan]

Hi Mike,

I think a lot of the teeth-gnashing is probably really about the lack of any kind of eye-level focussing aid for manual focus, particularly with respect to using.

[John Camp]

You make a case, but it's not as simple as sports car vs. semi. The lack of *some* viewfinder may make a sports-car sized camera handle as slowly as a truck. Also, sports cars come in different sizes -- both a Mazda Miata and a Porsche 911 are sports cars, but have very different capabilities.

Somewhere, there has to be a sweet spot where you have *all* of the critical elements -- a compact camera with a viewfinder (probably electronic) that will take zooms, feature IS and AF, ect. The G1 is very close, though admittedly doesn't have the Oly's cachet. The K7 might be close, but I'd have to get my hands on the camera to know for sure.

When it comes to the DMD, the original was the M3 - and the G1 occupies something like the volume of an M3, although the bits are distributed differently. It is lighter than an M3. The Oly is actually smaller than the M3, which suggests to me that it might be just a little bit *too* small -- a real DMD camera isn't necessarily pocketable, IMHO, although I'm not (yet) on the International DMD Standards Committee. (I urge you to support my candidacy.)

We also need to make a point about lenses -- on a real DMD, they will be relatively compact, but not necessarily tiny. I think both the G1 and Oly lenses meet this standard, but no Nikon or Canon or Sony lenses do, with the possible exception of some manual Zeiss primes. Pentax does meet the standard, I think, with its line of pancake lenses and some fairly compact zooms. The point being that some people have suggested that now that Panasonic and Oly have made a point about the DMD market, the big boys are bound to jump in. Except the big boys don't have the lenses; even their primes are big and chunky.

Bottom line for me: I think a revised DMD standard should specify a viewfinder of some sort. (And before too many years pass, I think most viewfinders will be electronic -- there are too many advantages, like the ability to zoom for highly critical focus, and the ability to boost in low light -- for them not to be adopted.)

[Bron Janulis]

Mike,

You forgot ashes in the hair. Your points are valid, but at the same time, for the 5% or less that I want and use some kind of viewfinder, there are valid counter points.

If the machine is fast, relative, and the display can be shut off in use; but I don't think we know that yet.

Still curious about the streets of Berlin.

[aabram]

It's not that I hate EVF, no, it's just that I can't and don't want to shoot with arms extended. I want the additional stability I gain when pressing camera close against the face. That's what I want. I want that tunnel vision that blacks out everything else but the scene. Screen on the back of the camera can't provide that. I'm cool with EVF as long as I can look through it, instead of looking at it.

[Colin]

I don't understand why people are so hellbent on this thing being the digital Leica CL they all wish for. It isn't. There was nothing that said it was going to be and this whole fury over the lack of an optical viewfinder is a joke. If Olympus wanted to cover all available lenses for micro 4/3 then the viewfinder would have to go from 14-400mm....I don't want to consider the size let alone the price of adding something like that to this camera.

But all of this does show one thing still boiling in the camera community. The people want optical viewfinders, and the people want their low priced digital rangefinder.

[matt]

'Just try imagining it—what is it you want? How would it work?'

Scrap the interchangeable lenses. They just confuse me anyway. I just want a Hexar AF with digital sensor. The sensor can be aps-c or 4/3 or something else moderately large, and the lens can be a 2.8, but I'd like it stay near the 35mm angle of view. 40 would do too. IS would be nice, but not necessary. Same VF as the Hexar AF.

I'd pay $2000 if it was all nicely implemented, although at that price I can just wait for the prices to drop on used M8s.

I'm not asking for much, but I know that the not-much I'm asking for would have a very limited appeal.

[triplight]

I guess the main concern is using the LCD outdoors. I would have liked a Sony-style tilt-up/down screen, which would help adjust for glare and provide waist-level framing.

Or another solution, for those who insist on shooting in bright sunlight: Just don't do that!

[Jay]

Here iis a ink to a video where Gary Knight of the VII agency shows how to use a 35mm Leica brightline OVF with the G10 set for a 35mm view. I've been using it this way and the tiny VF on the G10 cannot compare.

http://www.usa.canon.com/dlc/controller?act=GetArticleAct&articleID=2726

If the E-P1 works better with the 17mm lens and my finder or Olympus', then it will be the partner to my M8 and a great camera for street shooting.

I don't care about flash or zoom lenses.

[Ken N]

Anybody ever use a medium-format camera with waist-level viewfinder? How about a 4x5 view camera? Some of us have and we understand the benefit of actually seeing the image on the focus screen with TWO eyes.

For those people who hold cameras way out at arms length, PLEASE get your eyeglass subscription updated.

[Charlie H]

My compiments on the square foot garden. It is a handsome piece of carpentry. What did you use for the bottom? ch

[Player]

There ya go Mike: an E-P1 with three lovely, fast, compact primes lenses and an OVF. The ability to use a zoom is more of a compromise than being able to use a trio of crisp prime lenses with an optical viewfinder, it seems to me anyway. If someone absolutely requires a zoom lens they're probably not much of a connoisseur, and in that case, there's a glut of zoom point 'n' shoots on the market. The E-P1 would just not be the camera for them.

[Mike Johnston]

"It's not that I hate EVF, no, it's just that I can't and don't want to shoot with arms extended. I want the additional stability I gain when pressing camera close against the face. That's what I want."

They make cameras for that.

Mike

[Mike Johnston]

"Still curious about the streets of Berlin."

It's coming. It's in and I'm working on it, but it's quite long and I have some other things to do this afternoon. It will be posted tonight or tomorrow.

Mike

[Nigel]

For anyone with decent eyesight, it ought not to be a great issue, and I hope Olympus sell shedloads of the EP-1.
I really admire them for taking the risk of making something different.

For those of us with less than perfect eyeballs, the rear screen experience just isn't quite as much fun, and given the cost of opting into a whole new interchangeable lens system, I'm going to wait.
Whoever develops a camera like this with a small workable clip-on EVF will likely get my business.
And I suspect I won't have to wait all that long.

[Mike Johnston]

"What did you use for the bottom?"

Half-inch plywood, with a quarter-inch hole per square foot, which is what the book recommends. Evidently it doesn't need much drainage, as the soil is so friable that excess moisture evaporates.

Mike

[William Barnett-Lewis]

First, regarding an optical viewfinder and a zoom, please see the Contax G2 and it's 35-70 F3.5-5.6 VARIO-SONNAR.

But second, I really can understand the fuss over the lack of a view finder on the EP-1. I would never even consider purchasing one because of the lack. I have other issues with the camera, but that one is for me the showstopper. It does not need to be optical - I believe that Olympus has used an eye view EVF in other smaller cameras - but there has to be some other way of using the camera than at arms length.

When I use my A590, the screen is off unless I'm actively reviewing & deleting shots. For shooting, I refuse to chimp. It's a small thing, but I do believe it helps my shooting be somewhat less bletcherous than it can otherwise be... ;)

In the end, I am not the EP-1's market. Slow primes, no shallow DOF due to short focal lengths used by the small sensor, no view finder, no film (oops, that is rather "teh point", eh?) and so on. For those it fits, it's probably going to be a very nice camera. But I'll keep waiting for something that makes me want to give up my Speed Graphics, my Canon FTb-N or my Kiev 4a with it's handful of beautiful prewar CZJ lenses. All of the digital makers have a long way to go before they will even come close.

[Wilhelm]

You're wrong!
My tiny, little bitty pocket Minolta Xt had an excellent, clear zoom finder with enough eye relief that I could see it with my glasses on. It showed about 85% of the captured image, but of course it was designed that way -- it could have showed more if they wanted it to.
This E-P1 was as stupid design as the Canon 7 (which lacked a built-in accessory shoe)!
Where was Maitani when they needed him?

[Ted Johnson]

The lack of an OVF is not a killer in my view. The killer is that without the OVF the camera should either have really good autofocus or a means to effectively zone focus or a high-res LCD that allows for accurate manual focusing. The jury is out on whether the EP-1 has those attributes which offset the lack of an OVF.

[Mike Johnston]

"You're wrong!
My tiny, little bitty pocket Minolta Xt had an excellent, clear zoom finder with enough eye relief that I could see it with my glasses on. It showed about 85% of the captured image"

Wilhelm,
Er, have you forgotten the raison d'etre of the E-P1? Larger sensor, remember? The Xt had a tiny sensor, hence a tiny zoom. It's a fair bet that the zoom on the E-P1 is as small as Olympus can reasonably make it.

Mike

[ben]

"Garment-rending..."

Mike, you are a gem!

[EVF]

65 year old shooter-can't see close or well in bright light. I want a smaller camera than the G1. I don't much care about the cameras we used to have. That's history. I can live without video although that probably has little effect on the size. Others have weighed in on reasons for an eye level viewfinder so I won't repeat them; I just wanted to put my vote in for an EVF.

[Jayson Merryfield]

"In the end, I am not the EP-1's market."

Here's the key statement - the EP-1 is not an enthusiast/hardcore/professional/technologist camera, as much as we all pined and lusted over it for months. As per Mr. Watanabi's comments, they're aiming at compact camera users who are put off by the complexity & size of a DSLR. People who are: a) already used to using a camera away from their face, and; b) are happy doing their post-processing work in-camera via art filters and the like. Features like the hot shoe OVF and even the 17mm lens are nods towards the interested hardcore crowd (along with the level of control offered), but this is a mainstream, consumer-based camera.

Seems like Olympus was paying attention to what Nintendo just did a few years ago with the Wii.

[Clyde]

I'm fine with the LCD in principle. But the reality is nobody makes one that is viewable in bright light (requires too much power apparently). For me, alas, that may be the deal breaker on the E-P1. If it had a pop-out viewing hood and/or a tilt screen, it might be a useful outdoor camera.

[Mike Mundy]

But, isn't this just the first in a series?

It looks like it's been designed to appeal to the broadest possible audience. I'd guess that later models will have much of what is (supposedly) missing now.

[Ludovic]

Well, it's not everyday that I disagree with you. In fact, today must be a first :)

If I may, you may be ever-so-slightly disingenuous. What many people lament is the lack of VF. Whether O or E, who cares.

You do make an excellent case about the almost-uselessness of the OVF solution (I remember being irritated by the zoom appearing in the G7's) - *but* it remains that Oly could have, I'm sure, added *some* EVF, no matter how bad or how small.

Because (and a friend mocks me mercilessly about this) while I am a strong supporter of LCD framing and shooting (and better yet, articulated LCD framing and shooting :)), it remains that, in many a case, I was saved by the VF, and would never have gotten the shot with the screen.

Even the best, 900K-pixel LCD will not suffice at all times - and the 230K one fitted to the EP1 does not sound too promising on that respect.

As mentioned before, there's a 90% chance I will get the EP1, because I have been dreaming of a DMD for years, and this is the closest there's been, by far (my G1 is still too bulky for my taste... so no EP2 would work either.) But I will regret Oly's decision to not include some sort of EVF, even at the expense of a couple of 1/16" in size.

I am actually very, very excited about the EP1. I am equally worried about some shooting conditions I regularly encounter and will be at a loss to overcome given that decision.

[Ludovic]

(And don't worry about the $30 salads. It's the normal price for organic :))

[mfbernstein]

I really don't think most of the complaints are about the missing OVF. They're about the missing eye-level VF. And I don't think asking for some sort of VF beyond the rear LCD in a $750 camera is that unreasonable.

Hopefully the next model will fix that with a good EVF (and not be too much larger).

[Archer Sully]

@Ted

Bingo. The jury is still out. No one has spent enough time with release level hardware and firmware to have any idea of how the camera actually behaves. Perhaps its time we all shut up for a while until there's some real world experience with the bugger.

[Ron W]

I assume the back LCD is fixed and not like to rotatable one of the Panasonic G-1 on the Olympus E-3. That in my mind is as unfortunate as not having some capacity for an electronic viewfinder (such as the Ricoh GX-100 or 200.

[Dennis]

Thanks Mike for attempting to foster a sense of rationality about this madness we share. =)

[McD]

For most (not all) shooting, I prefer EVF to OVF. Why? 100% view, WYSIWYG sensor readout, auto brightness compensation and auto magnification for manual focusing. In effect, it's "live view" at eye level, with a sun shade. All that, and a size and weight advantage as well. Is that enough to offset the digital vs. analog issues? Often it is.

The Lumix FZ8 was my introduction to the advantages of EVF. I'm still getting to know the G1, but already my tendency is to use it instead of a current C or N DSLR. In many of my shooting situations, G1 handling and image quality are as good if not better.

If SEEING with reasonable precision and GETTING the shot are the criteria, a well done EVF offers advantages as well as limitations. The limitations are likely to be addressed in time. Meanwhile, we have the compelling benefit of that most useful 100% view.

[Martin Doonan]

I described the ideal camera: http://doonster.blogspot.com/2009/06/ideal-camera.html
Someone just has to build it.

[Wilhelm]

Mike, the viewfinder on the Minolta Xt was an independent optical finder (38-105mm equiv), which had nothing to do with the size of the lens or the sensor. It was tiny, and could easily be incorporated into the Olympus with virtually no increase in size or weight.
Incidentally, I compared the E-P1 measurements with my Leica CL. The CL body is the same width, 1/5" taller, but 1/6" thinner than the Olympus. It definitaly is NOT pocketable.

[Dennis]

Ken wrote:
"Anybody ever use a medium-format camera with waist-level viewfinder? "

Yup and a digicam with an articulating LCD that is wonderful for doing the same thing. But if you shoot the E-P1 like that, you'll get a lot of pictures of your feet.

Personally, I haven't noticed a lot of furor over the lack of an OVF specifically. I've noticed a lot of hand-wringing over the fact that it only has a fixed LCD. Some people want OVF, some want EVF, some (like me) want an articulating LCD. If the lenses I want became available and there was no sign of an articulating LCD version coming, I'd probably live with the fixed LCD. But I'd wait a while to see what happens first. I rarely use the OVF on my digicam - it's inaccurate, small, and the LCD is just better (I only resort to the OVF in bright sunlight) - but at the same time, I rarely shoot with the LCD parallel to the camera body.

[JonA]

All this cheering and griping just shows how much a large sensor, small camera is desired (needed?). I can't remember any recent product coming out to this much furor.

[Mike Lougee]

I haven't tried it myself, but Uwe Steinmueller has a fun little description about how he's using the Hoodman viewfinder as a "pseudo EVF" with cameras lacking an OVF, see

http://www.outbackphoto.com/CONTENT_2007_01/section_gear_cameras_2009/20090507_Viewfinder/index.html

It seems a tad awkward to me (2 pieces of gear, Hoodman is somewhat large), but it probably works well in practice.

[john robison]

Well, one advantage of the E-P1 is to look enough like a little tourist digicam that we might not get harassed as much as with a big black DSLR. Just like number one on your list of 14 ways to photograph in public.

[jason]

"Bitcherati"

I love it. That said though, it makes me wonder if the demand for a low-cost digital rangefinder extends beyond the small (albeit vocal) minority that posts on the various forums.

[Harold Glit]

Mike
Thank you for your post. I have been trying to explain your point to the dpr users without much success
I , as for one , don't think of what you call a DMD with zooms , but with a few single focal lenghts . Give me a 24,40mm and 85mm lenses ( in 35mm equivalent) in a 4/3 format and with the external OVF and that's all what I would need for a carry everywhere camera
the only thing that puzzles me is that some report that , outside the absence of correction for parallax, the viewfinder for the 17mm does not seem to indicate the actual field of view , even at normal distances
Harold

[Richard]

Besides having their zoom lenses for this model, Olympus should provide a series of good primes that could be sold as sets with their appropriate clip-on OVFs. Two such lenses could share one mutual OVF (eg 14 and 17, 22 and 26, 37 and 45)with the use of frame lines. Then zoom people could use their LCDs and the rest of us would still have our cakes to eat.
It would also be helpful to reduce the size of the optical viewfinder. This first one is unnecessarily large -- Rich

[Mike]

Colin knows that 'they' want a digital CL. Matt wants a digital Hexar. I want a digital Ikon. That's a market, but obviously we all want them to be either better implemented/cheaper/both than an M8.

More seriously, I think the idea's great. I am beginning to think this sort of camera is more 'appropriate' for social documentary work today than a film rf, but the (pre-production) samples on dpreview are isappointing. I would seriously consider a kit with the prime if I were convinced it was a good lens.

Mike

[Adam Richardson]

The Minolta XT could take pretty decent pictures if you respected its limitations (I was happy with these shots I got out of it a few years ago at the Monterey Concours http://richardsona.zenfolio.com/p861305156 ). But I strongly disagree with Willhelm about its viewfinder: it was crap. The LCD (very small by today's standards) was the only way to really do things. I only resorted to the OVF when sunlight washed out the LCD, which happened frequently on that Monterey shoot.

But the XT, like many of the other examples given above, was a camera with a fixed lens, albeit a zoom. This makes designing an OVF somewhat reasonable. But for an interchangeable-lens camera, it's basically impossible, as the designer has no way of really predicting what lenses will go onto it. This is especially true of the open Micro 4/3 system, since Olympus doesn't even know/own the lens roadmap.

And while it's easy to extoll the benefits of viewfinder held up to the eye, let's not forget the benefits that come in many situations from holding the camera away from the face:
- Better engagement with your human subject
- Often the ability to be less obtrusive about taking the photo, or when you're taking it
- Ability to see things off in the periphery and respond

All this will be a moot point in 3-4 years anyway, given that LCDs are on a trajectory similar to Moore's law for CPUs: tiny, super high-density LCDs with low latency and excellent color accuracy will provide a good enough facsimile of optical that it will free up the design constraints.