A Short History of Viewfinders

Luke asked: "I'd like to hear more about that giant viewfinder on the [Sigma] fp. Do you like it?"

I do.

It's not perfect, of course. No viewfinder is.

I've always had a thing about viewfinders—and one way you can look at the history of cameras is by taking note of how they "find the view." With a "view camera," of course, the lens image is cast directly on a piece of frosted glass mounted behind it. You see the image with unrivaled immediacy, but of course it's also upside down and reversed from side to side, because that's how lenses see. Of course you had to throw a cloth over your head to block out stray daylight, because the image was dim. My first view camera was a Wista 4x5, which had a Fresnel lens on the groundglass, and the image was bright and almost magical—there were many times that I set up the camera just to watch the world through it. Which is incredibly geeky. But you understand.

Press cameras had "sports finders," which were simply wire frames that extended up into the air in front of a small circular eyepiece meant only to locate your eye in the proper place, with the right perspective on the wire rectangle.

The TLR, which was the coolest, latest camera type in the 1930s, had a separate viewing lens with a mirror behind it, casting the image upward onto a groundglass, meaning the image the photographer saw was right-side up but laterally reversed, which took some getting used to. To move the image to what appeared to be the "right," you had to rotate the camera to the left. The TLR also suffered from parallax, because the location in space of the viewing lens was different than the location of the taking lens. To experience parallax, just look at something with one eye closed, compose it the way you want it to look, and then switch eyes.

TLR viewfinders, and many medium-format SLRs as well, had clever collapsible hoods to shade the viewfinders from stray daylight—solving the same problem the darkcloth over the head had solved in the 1800s. And it's still a problem today—many cellphone cameras become almost useless in strong daylight; the viewfinder brightness gets overwhelmed by the sun.

When 35mm took over from TLRs in the 1950s, it did so first in the form of rangefinders, which had viewfinders that are often likened to "windows"—with, of course, "framelines," superimposed on the plain window view. It's probably the least voluptuous sort of viewfinder, and inherently approximate. Like the TLR, it suffers from parallax, and the framelines are in almost all cases merely approximate. If you watch a video of some of the great Leica photographers working, like this one of Garry Winogrand, you'll notice they spend very little time fussing over, or, let's say, enjoying, the viewfinder view. Winogrand often barely looks through his viewfinder at all. Cartier-Bresson hid his camera behind a handkerchief in his hands, and it was said that he could get it to his eye, take a picture, and hide it again before most people even noticed what he was doing. Rangefinder viewfinders also are only useful with a limited range of focal lengths—135mm became a common focal length only because it was the practical maximum focal length for a 35mm rangefinder camera.

The single-lens reflex (SLR) seemed to solve every problem. It reported the angle of view of any lens that fit the camera body, no matter how short or long; the view was "rectified," meaning right-side up and un-reversed; there was zero parallax at any distance. Even SLR viewfinders had some less obvious problems, however. Because the image had to follow a complex path, reflected by a mirror and then bounced around in a glass prism, it became dark, which made focus more difficult. When cameras evolved to have "auto-stopdown," meaning the lens was always wide open and at maximum brightness during focussing and stopped down only right before an exposure, the photographer was seeing the image with the lens at its worst-quality ƒ-stop and with less depth-of-field than the picture would show, assuming she had the lens set on a smaller ƒ-stop.

SLR viewfinders were so good, though, and the manufacturers had become so adept at making them, that they survived well into the digital era. Until recently, in fact. It wasn't until 2018 that the big camera companies wholeheartedly followed Sony's lead into full-frame mirrorless (FF-M or FFM). The electronic viewfinder (EVF) images of mirrorless cameras show the camera's view on miniature screens, often likened to tiny televisions. A big advantage of electronic screens is that on most cameras you can switch between the view through an eyepiece and the view on a larger screen on the back of the camera, conventionally called the viewing screen, which is often articulated. Mirrorless viewfinding solves the brightness problem, and can enable real-time visual responsiveness to camera settings. Plus, they're not as expensive or as difficult to manufacture as SLR viewfinders—not that you'd know this from prevailing FF-M prices!. But of course you're no longer seeing the actual light or the actual colors of the scene, merely an interpretation of them. As with every other kind of viewfinder in history, mirrorless viewfinders have their plusses and minuses.

Marching to the beat of a different drummer
My Sigma fp doesn't have an EVF, doubtless a consequence of its current status as the smallest full-frame camera ever made. To give it an eye-level finder, Sigma took an unconventional route—it created a chimney-style magnifier that bolts on to the camera and covers the viewing screen. This pretty much defeats the "smallest FF camera" bragging point, because it makes the camera quite a bit bigger. And there are a few negatives—for one, it merely enlarges the viewing screen, giving it a less continuous-tone visual impression than a conventional EVF, and, for another, the magnifier sometimes has some mild problems with reflections, especially if you don't snug your eye socket up to the eyepiece.

Car Coming

But I like it. It provides a much larger view than most EVFs. To compare viewfinder size, simply focus two cameras to the same distance, say across the room, and contrive to hold one up to each eye. You'll be able to "overlay" the image from one eye over the image from the other, giving a visual reading on the relative size of the two viewfinder images. The larger size of the fp's unique arrangement gives it a greater immediacy—it seems more like you're "there" in the image than with a more distant view, and it becomes easier to pay attention to details. It's the opposite of older entry-level DSLRs with mirror-boxes instead of prisms, which imparted the sense that you were seeing a small opening at the end of a dark tunnel, and made small details in the viewfinder image difficult to see.

Would it be worth buying the Sigma to get the viewfinder? I doubt it, for most people. Most EVFs in mirrorless cameras are exceptionally good these days, bright, clear, and pleasing, and few people will need or even want anything more. 

But if you get a chance to look through the Sigma fp with its LVF-11 chimney-style finder, do. There are so many viewfinders over the years that I've enjoyed and appreciated. Although none were perfect, many were beautiful, and a few were memorable. This one is unusual and memorable. Just as a car's steering feel is the most important intermediating feature between a driver and the road, and the thing that most distinguishes its character, a camera's viewfinder is the most important intermediating feature between the photographer's eye and the visual world.

Mike

Book o' the Week

Annie Leibovitz. At long last, the unlimited trade edition of the humongous, limited Sumo edition by Taschen. Mind you, it's still a huge book—15.4 inches high, 556 pages, and almost 13 pounds. And the price! (But that's nothing—the Sumo weighed 57 pounds and cost $7,500.) This is the closest ordinary folks (with ordinary shelves) will get to the ultimate Annie. It will be released on Friday, and can be pre-ordered now.

This book link is a portal to Amazon. You're very kind use our links, as they help support the site.

B&H Photo

Original contents copyright 2020 by Michael C. Johnston and/or the bylined author. All Rights Reserved. Links in this post may be to our affiliates; sales through affiliate links may benefit this site. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.

(To see all the comments, click on the "Comments" link below.)
Featured Comments from:

Geoffrey Wittig: "Great post, Mike. It's so true; the viewfinder subjectively is 90% of the experience of using a camera. It's the reason I just can't give up my increasingly anachronistic Canon DSLRs. That (relatively) bright, quite literally immediate image is how I've come to see the world. No matter how good they get, digital viewfinders remain a software/hardware team's simulacrum of the world. Like watching a video of a trail rather than hiking it in person. I love everything else about the delightful Fujifilm X-T[x] cameras. But that digital viewfinder is still like kissing your sister."

Chris H: "NICE pic that, titled 'Car Coming.' Keep 'em coming, er, so to speak."

Mike replies: Thanks!

Albert Smith: "One of the best improvements to camera viewfinders and one that I didn't appreciate until I got older is the incorporation of a stepless dioptor adjustment. Regardless of the finder type, if you can't see the subject and the technical data in the display, then you won't have an easy path to getting the image that you want. Having the ability to fine-tune the finder to your eyes instantly versus the trial and error process of aquiring and screwing corrective lenses into the eye piece is now a can't-live-without feature."

Mike replies: Agree. Another problem with the old screw-in diopters is one I encountered when my right eye was deteriorating and I was into used cameras: you can't find the diopters you need for older, long discontinued cameras. I needed –2 diopter attachments and there were some cameras that either didn't take them at all or that you couldn't find them for. An integrated diopter adjustment is always there with the camera. Was the Olympus OM-4T the first camera to have that? It was among the first anyway.

Jeff: "One reason I enjoy using Leica cameras (having owned 11 brands, and formats ranging from sub-35mm to 4x5) is their prioritization of the viewing experience. The M rangefinder experience keeps improving; the S system has always incorporated a wonderful OVF; and the SL system has had a state-of-the-art EVF ever since the original SL 601. If I don’t enjoy seeing the subject, I don’t bond with the camera."

Benjamin Marks: "Applause all 'round Mike. This is an important and oft-ignored subject. The level of detail that I would add is that pre-autofocus SLRs often had focus aids built in to the viewing screen (a split image, for instance for focusing on lines or a coarse area around the central image that made focusing on patterns—or both) easier. Fancier cameras (Pentax LX, Nikon F3, and Canon F1, for example) had interchangeable focusing screens that allowed the photographer to choose the style best suited for his/her work. When autofocus came around, these focusing aids disappeared from the viewfinder. I don't know whether it was technically impossible to retain them, or merely a cost-saving measure, but the central area of DLSRs was now smooth, which made manual focus a challenge, for me at least. I remember using adapted lenses on my Canon Rebel XT in the early 2000s and it was difficult to do. This was also because those early efforts had a postage-stamp-at-the-bottom-of-a-well viewfinder design that I found so infelicitous. Fast manual focus lenses? Kind of a crapshoot.

"Even the Canon 5D, which was the first affordable-to-me FF DSLR, had a smooth focusing screen and muted my pleasure from using that otherwise fine camera.

"In my opinion (and isn't this all just my opinion?) today's digital VF's with their ability to zoom and to provide low light performance are an improvement, but have a resulting added complexity (need the manual to remember which button to press, too many buttons) resulting in less of a tool and more of a technological object)."

Todd Scholton: "Thanks for this post. I've never had this topic explained quite so well. I really enjoyed it, so thanks!"

Mike replies: You're welcome. Some of my best articles are about viewfinders, because it's a subject I care about (I'll see if I can find a link to an article I wrote a number of years ago, "Understanding Viewfinders"). It's funny—good viewfinders are expensive to develop and manufacture, and cameramakers aren't rewarded for providing them because the lion's share of consumers are just so unaware. And yet an appreciation for viewfinders really distinguishes a discerning camera operator from one who isn't. (I'd use the expression "separates the men from the boys," but it feels sexist these days...English needs a more enlightened phrase that means the same thing.)

Comments

[Giovanni Maggiora]

Hi Mike! Very relevant subject, thanks!
On thing though. You say of optical viewfinder "windows" that "It's probably the least voluptuous sort of viewfinder, and inherently approximate. Like the TLR, it suffers from parallax, and the framelines are in almost all cases merely approximate."
Every point after the first column is definitely, factually correct, and indeed some meaningful limitation to the uses of an OVF. But the first statement, about voluptuousness, well may I respectfully posit the opposite view (pun not intended)? At least as far as Leica Ms are concerned, I find the "transparency" of their viewfinders a major attraction: you are "with" your subject, not removed from it by a screen of any sort. In other words, you see the subject and not the image. I started out with SLR cameras (my good old Nikon FM, still with me), and I have and do use today EVF-based ones (Fuji in my case): they do what they do greatly, in same cases irreplaceably so, so bless their existence. And I've never experienced the wonder of a view camera, which must be magic. But every time I go back to my M, I can't help feeling liberated and "present" to my surroundings and to my subject. A great feeling in its own right, precise framing can wait...

[Speed]

And then there is the articulated screen on the back of a digital mirrorless camera that allows the operator to hold the camera above or below or beside eye position. For users that prefer screen size and position over compactness there are relatively large screens usually mounted above and forward of the camera body which are useful in quickly (especially video) moving situations -- allowing the operator to frame the subject while maintaining situational awareness. These are often used by operators who need to avoid bumping into things or tripping while making videos.

[David Glos]

FWIW, chimney magnifier solutions are available to fit most any camera. Zacuto and Hoodman are popular brands, although you can find additional models by searching for "LCD Loupes."

Needed one to make my Sigma DP1 useable. A most curious beast, with a fantastic lens, great files in good light, not so great software, and infuriatingly short lived batteries.

[John Krumm]

I enjoyed this post, and also the short video of Winogrand at work. You can see how he gets in interesting, tilted photos in between a quick check of settings and pushing his glasses back up on his nose (the viewfinder being almost unneeded). The concentration reminded me of the documentary on Harry Gruyaert that someone shared with your Youtube post. At one point on a bus, Gruyaert is looking through his viewfinder and sees a kid's head is in the way. He reaches over with his hand and moves the kid's head and quickly takes the shot. I had to laugh.

[Olybacker]

The screen on the back of the digital camera is OK until you start to require reading spectacles. If your prescription is low (+1 dioptre) you can probably get away with the camera at arms length - if you have long arms. As your sight lengthens you may need progressively stronger glasses that are uncomfortable to wear all the time (horizons and distant subjects appear blurred) unless you are reading a book, looking at a cellphone, tablet, laptop or computer screen.

If you are prepared to carry strong prescription reading glasses with you while not wearing any other spectacles then looking at a screen on camera back is OK. That is where the advantage of a DSLR becomes apparent over a film SLR. The dioptric viewfinder correction is built in. Smarter makers of EVF cameras, the Panasonic brand comes to mind, incorporate correction into the eyefinder. If you forget your reading glasses, you can still take photographs.

Olympus missed an important design feature when they introduced the Pen EP-range: a direct optical vision finder would have sold more cameras to ageing photographers.

[Dennis Mook]

Mike, thanks for the trip down memory lane. Back in the late 1970s when I was using a Mamiya C330, that pesky parallax became a real issue for anything at moderate to close focusing distances. It turned out that Mamiya sold a device called a “Paramender,” which was an apparatus that attached between the camera and the tripod head. One would compose one’s subject, set aperture and shutter speed, then raise the geared Paramender which would place the taking lens in the exact position of the viewing lens. The result was that the twin lens viewfinder parallax issue was solved.

[Jack Mac]

The best viewfinder is the one you have with you.

[Greg Heins]

Yes to the importance of viewfinders. But I suspect that most of us use what we get and don't get upset. Well, too upset anyway. Some time ago I switched from a Pentax 645Z to a Fuji 50S for various 'good reasons.' First time I put the new camera to my eye, I thought, "Damn. Forgot about that viewfinder part." Now I don't notice.
As for the Sigma viewfinders, your LVF is indeed a high-quality magnifier of the rear screen. My only complaint is that the diopter adjustment always seems to be in a different place each time I use the camera. I have to remind myself to check the setting. That said, I was working a few weeks ago and had to squat down to get the right viewpoint. When I finally got myself back upright, I ordered the too-expensive EVF, with its 90-degree adjustable eyepiece, right from my phone. The LVF still has its uses; it can always be flipped over and used like a super-quality Hoodman.

[Bill Poole]

Great analysis, Mike, and I've used them all over the years. You do not mention the very clever Fuji X-Pro line, in which you can choose between the display generated by the camera and a view of the actual scene with frame lines. There doesn't seem to be much future for this, but I like it a lot--best of both worlds..

[Bill Tyler]

About parallax. There are two aspects to viewfinder parallax in TLRs and rangefinders. First, the angle of view onto the subject is different, because the viewing lens is not in the same position as the taking lens. Second, the area covered is different for similar reasons, so composing to the edges of the frame is harder. This second aspect can be and is partially handled by clever mechanisms. My ancient Crown Graphic, which has a rangefinder-style viewfinder and a wire-frame viewfinder as well as the ground glass back exhibits two solutions. The rear bit of the wire frame finder, a small hole in a bit of metal through which you look towards the frame itself is able to slide up and down, with markings for different subject distances. The rangefinder window has a thin bit of metal that slides as the camera is focused so that the view corresponds pretty accurately to the area that the final image will include. Neither of these is a perfect solution, but they each contribute to improved framing.

[Kenneth Tanaka]

That “chimney”-style screen magnifier viewfinder (“LVF”) on the Sigma fp-L was a hoot to use! It felt rather luxurious. But it did come with the disadvantages of (a) being a bit bulky for casual urban use, (b) offering no angled viewing, and (c) preventing use of the camera’s touch-screen functionality for auto-focus control. That latter would have been the deal-breaker for me. The Sigma fp -does- offer a pretty good 90 deg tiltable accessory EVF that bolts to the side of the camera. It also brings some inconvenient disadvantages but would be the more practical choice for most people.

Viewfinder history, eh? Some cling to their old DSLRs and mourn the demise of TTL optical viewfinders. Not me! The modern high-res / high-refresh EVF is perhaps the most significant supporting technology of today’s cameras. I’ve come to rely heavily on the info-rich displays of my mirrorless cameras’ viewfinders and don’t even think about them being electronic. And don’t even get me started on the value of the articulating rear displays! Absolutely wonderful!

[Stan B.]

You’re almost tempting me to get back into B&W again (almost)!

[hugh crawford]

You say"the photographer was seeing the image with the lens at its worst-quality ƒ-stop and with less depth-of-field than the picture would show, assuming she had the lens set on a smaller ƒ-stop." as though that was a problem. I wish the current mirrorless cameras defaulted to that or at least enabled it. I can do that with adapted lenses but it's slow and obviously not great for portraits or animals. I adapted a Nikon E2 extension tube as an adapter but that wasn't really optimal either.

[hugh crawford]

Mike, SLR cameras were really big* in the late 1800s. They are even older than film. I have glass plate holders for one of my Graflexs although the camera is from the 1920s. To tell the truth, I bought them by mistake, but using them has been on my todo list for, oh, 30 years or so.

*like really quite large

[robert e]

I know exactly what you mean about that ground glass image. Somehow both flat and 3D at the same time; on the glass but also floating, real but not exactly. TLR's are neat because it's that experience in the palm of your hand--not as immersive, obviously, but on the other hand much more accessible. In the other direction is the camera obscura (perhaps the original viewfinder?), with its human sensor/recorder within.

[Mark]

"Car coming"...really like the simplicity...the design of your photo.
And the home interior photo you posted a few days ago...also an fp
shot...a nice feel to that image....makes one want to purchase an
fp....so I did. Working with a view camera for so many years I missed
seeing the scene on the large ground glass. The fp has brought
that back. And manual focus...what a treat. I wish it had the rise/fall and tilts feature of my Techikarden...then it would for me, be the
perfect photographic tool.

[David Dyer-Bennet]

True, the EVF is not showing you the "real" view in the original light.

It's showing you what the sensor is capturing. That is, it's much closer to what your camera will actually record than any other viewfinder in the history of the field.

In the SLR world, pro-level SLRs often provided some flexibility in viewfinders. For Nikon's early F model for example they had a big pentaprism with built-in metering (Photomic FTN), a small pentaprism with no metering, and a waist-level finder. Plus on top of that, there were things like right-angle finders that could be attached to the eyepiece. This sort of flexibility was one of the clear lines between the pro-level models and the lower models.

I also tend to agree with the people who found the Leica M-series viewfinder more "natural" than others. It was a closer match to the scene brightness, the frame-lines were moved (by the focus mechanism) to be reasonably close to the actual framing, and you could see beyond the edges of the frame you were about to capture (except with the widest lens your body handled). That made it easier to handle complexity, crowds of moving people in particular.

Precise framing wasn't all that useful anyway. If you were shooting slides, some small amount was masked off by the mounts and what that was depended on the kind of mounts used. Making prints from negatives in the darkroom, you could print out to the absolute edge if you wanted to badly enough (you had to file out the negative carrier to do so, few people did it)—but the paper sizes common were not much like the same aspect ratio as 35mm negatives, so you were probably cropping to fit the paper size anyway. Or, if you were a working photojournalist, you were probably printing full-frame and leaving the cropping to the editors, because how the image fit the page was more important than how it looked on its own. So you were trained to leave some slack, to make sure you don't cut off the side of a face or something. (Of course if you were taking your own art photos, you did whatever you wanted, but 35mm was not the medium for serious art photos until rather later, except among amateurs.)

[Jeff]

To Benjamin Marks…

The Leica S system (DSLR) has had interchangeable focus screens, including a microprism type, since the first iteration. As I wrote, Leica prioritizes the viewing (and focusing) experience.

https://www.reddotforum.com/content/2011/09/first-look-at-the-leica-s2-microprism-focusing-screen-153/

[John Camp]

Speaking of cameras and view screens...I recently rented a Toyota of some kind or another from Hertz, and the rear-view mirror was a view screen linked to a rear-view camera. Disconcerting, to say the least. Quite clear and perhaps with a wider view than the usual rear-view mirror, but with a problem I don't notice with cameras. The problem is, you have to focus on the screen. With a mirror, your eyes focus on the perceived distance of the image in the mirror -- that is, some more-or-less long distance away. With a view screen instead of a mirror, you have to close-focus. You go from long focus looking at the highway ahead of you, and when you glance up at the rear-view screen, your eyes have to suddenly extreme close-focus (less than an arm's length away, for me, and then refocus long back on the highway. As I said, strange and disconcerting.

[Omer]

Mike, I keep going back to “Car Coming” and it continually impresses. Well done.

[Danny R]

Maybe quite a separate subject, but --- manual exposure adjustment using an electronic viewfinder --- I find that I could adjust the exposure to my liking on my old Sony A7R (mark 1) rather well by just changing (film speed, aperture, time) settings until I like the look and it feels right in the VF - gets a good result, exposure, highlight/shadow, colour - doesn't work so well with some later EVFs; anyone (you Mike?) tell me what's going on here? It's as if they have a narrow 'window' of VF output which was later 'corrected' so the view looks OK whether exposure will be good or not. You may guess that I prefer the older VF for this reason.

[Timothy Auger]

Quote: 'Winogrand often barely looks through his viewfinder at all. Cartier-Bresson hid his camera behind a handkerchief in his hands, and it was said that he could get it to his eye, take a picture, and hide it again before most people even noticed what he was doing.'

So they were more than prepared to do creative or corrective cropping when printing. Which runs a bit contrary to all those people who obsess about 'getting it right in the camera'.

I enjoy the cropping process, with the radical improvements or changes to an image that it can bring.

[No, neither one of them cropped except very rarely. I do know of one instance where HCB did. But it was in the nature of the exception that proved the rule. --Mike]

[Carl Siracusa]

In that Gary Winogrand video, it's not just that he "often barely looks through his viewfinder at all." It looks like he NEVER uses the camera viewfinder, but instead, the accessory finder he has installed on top. Probably because he often shot with a lens too wide for the M3's built-in viewfinder framelines. Or maybe he just preferred the larger image that an accessory finder provides.

[David Mantripp]

I don’t have the Sigma fp, but I do have the dp0, which has a very similar viewfinder. In the right conditions (for the sensor) it is very enjoyable to use. Only problem is that people interrupt me to ask what the h*** it is :-)