I looked into the viewfinder of an old Pentax ME film SLR at

>>2890956
Because there's no need to. Framing and compatibility with small aperture lenses is more important. Welcome to the autofocus era. The best you'll see are the prisms on the early Nikon Fs. F4, F100, etc.

Because live view.

Check the EVF on a7 series Sonys and be blown away.

>>2891223
I was blown away but then I panned the camera and it looked like shit. Great viewfinder for still subjects. Would hate to use it for anything that requires moving the camera.

>>2890956
If you were blown away by that, just wait till you look into the viewfinder of a Nikon F3.

>>2891255

The Pentax M-series had bigger viewfinders than anything Nikon ever produced. It was sort of their whole thing, as the cameras were otherwise very basic.

>>2891223

>.7x
>blown away

pick one.

>>2891259
Yeah, but the F3 has 100% coverage.

>>2891265

okay? So do a lot of cameras. Very few have a 0.97x magnification.

>>2891268
I'd much rather have 0.8x magnification with 100% viewfinder coverage than 0.95x with 92% viewfinder coverage.

The coverage makes the Pentax only 9% larger, not enough to justify the inaccurate framing in my opinion.

Looking through a 50mm in the F3 finder after being used to 50mm in a low coverage finder was like moving up from a crop sensor.

>>2891277

And some people would rather have a larger viewfinder. That's op's point.

Fucking OM1 has a big viewfinder too.

>>2890956
>OPTION 1: Shoot tethered
I use my 10.1 inch tablet tethered to my camera's mini USB with a micro USB adapter. There are several apps for both android and IOS which will give you liveview and let you control all of your camera's settings, even showing histrogram, pull focus, and mimic DOF. This setup is particularly useful for portraits, products, macros, and architectural stuff.
>OPTION 2: Go wireless
Many cameras, like the Sony Alpha cameras, come with built-in wifi so you can use your phone or tablet to control camera wirelessly.
Or if your camera doesn't have wifi, there's the CamRanger, a small wifi modem that plugs into your camera and gives you a wireless range of over one hundred feet. You use the proprietary CamRanger app for chimping liveview and to control your camera.

I have a EVIL camera and you know what it's way nicer to shoot with my 1980s SLR. It just doesnt compare which is quite sad. Electronic viewfinders should have freed us from this debate. Instead it's like looking into a tiny TV in the mid distance.

>>2891278

Can't we have 100% coverage and 1x magnification?

>>2891357

Shoot 4x5.

High magnification works against high coverage, since you have to design around the (really small) eye piece and maintain a reasonable eye point (the distance your eye can be from the eye piece and still see the whole frame).

Think of your viewfinder like a giant movie theatre. The closer you get to the screen, the bigger the picture. Unfortunately, it also means you can see less of the screen within your entire field of view. You can sit further back in the theatre to see all of the screen at once, but it also gets smaller.

Film critics may prefer to see the whole screen at once, at the expense of the raw visceral feeling of sitting up close. In the same sense, professional cameras have 100% coverage but only so-so magnification.

Artists may prefer the total overwhelming experience of having a larger screen dominate your senses, at the expense of seeing it all in one glance. Similarly, some people prefer a huge viewfinder to an accurate one, as the sense of immersion into the scene afforded by a big viewfinder is worth the cost of peripheral details and inaccurate framing.

>>2891282
>97% coverage, 0.92x magnification, bright
Can confirm, it's like sitting right up against a movie screen, but it all fits in your eye. Eyeglass wearers can't see everything though, they kinda have to look around the inside of the viewfinder.

>>2891367
The part about film critics and artists is ridiculous. The director of photography of a movie sure counts as an artist, and I'm sure they would want to have the full picture within their field of view at all times.

>>2891367
Why do you need the entire screen to be in your eye's centre of focus at all times?

I wouldn't mind having to check the corners for framing.

>>2891378
It's a matter of opinion. To some people, it adds to the immersion having their entire field of view filled with screen area. To some people, it adds to the immersion not having to move their eyes and let the camera work dictate how their field of view "moves".

>>2891377

no one cares, nerd.

>>2891378

You'd have to have a ridiculously close eye point for that to work, which would probably end up being uncomfortable.

ultimately, someone probably could build a 100% 1X viewfinder, but it would be ridiculously expensive to do so. you're just going to have to accept a compromise between coverage and magnification,

On the other hand, if you want a big bright viewfinder with terrific coverage, you should be shooting a rangefinder.

>>2891382
>rangefinder
Enjoy your parallax error

>>2891385

okay

File: 1466842491545.jpg (7KB, 199x242px) Image search: [Google]

7KB, 199x242px

>>2891385
>mfw contax g2
>viewfinder corrects for parallax

File: 1434379095695.jpg (43KB, 500x494px) Image search: [Google]

43KB, 500x494px

>>2891385
> not using a bright, parallax-correcting, 1x magnification, over 100% coverage, ``shoot with both eyes open'' viewfinder of the Bessa R3

and people still ask "what's the point of rangefinders?"

>>2891387
>>2891398
*corrects the framing for parallax
There's more to parallax than that.

>>2891382
Fuck off with your edgy bullshit.

File: xr1tv.jpg (11KB, 612x445px) Image search: [Google]

11KB, 612x445px

>>2891412
What else is there to correct for?

File: melcrabpark2.jpg (349KB, 801x793px) Image search: [Google]

349KB, 801x793px

>>2891418
How stuff overlaps each other within the frame. If you're really anal about compositions and layering things parallax is a bitch.

>use tree branch to precisely conceal the sun
>looks great through viewfinder
>just missed it in reality
Pic related

[EXIF data available. Click here to show/hide.]

Camera-Specific Properties:
Camera Software	Adobe Photoshop CS3 Windows
Image-Specific Properties:
Image Orientation	Top, Left-Hand
Horizontal Resolution	300 dpi
Vertical Resolution	300 dpi
Image Created	2010:07:01 14:24:48
Color Space Information	Uncalibrated
Image Width	801
Image Height	793

File: 1271038_1112767022074973_4523389706715361687_o.jpg (312KB, 1182x800px) Image search: [Google]

312KB, 1182x800px

>>2891387
>>2891398
Good luck taking this shot with your "parallax corrected" viewfinders, dumbasses.
The crappy little projected frame corners moving around a few millimetres as you focus doesn't "correct" the fact that the optical axis of the viewfinder is usually displaced both vertically and horizontally from that of the lense; it's just a visual representation of how bad the problem is.
Never mind things like distortion, flare, or depth of field, which can also never be represented accurately by a separate viewfinder.
Refer to cameras like the Hologon or SWC or Ikon SW that try and minimise this problem by shifting the viewfinder to line up vertically with the lense.

>>2891424
Dealing with this stuff becomes second nature, though. It's a much bigger problem on paper than in camera.

Of course, if you really need very precise, deliberate framing of fairly close things, RF isn't the best choice.

>>2891425
lol why would i want to take this mediocre as fuck shot?

>>2891445
>Dealing with this stuff becomes second nature, though. It's a much bigger problem on paper than in camera.
Said the gearfag with no good photographs

File: FB_IMG_1469742892899.jpg (39KB, 720x479px) Image search: [Google]

39KB, 720x479px

>>2891282
>>2891373

Can confirm, my OM2n is massive and has the same focusing screen as my dad's OM1. With a 50mm lens looking through the finder is a ceaseless transition from reality. It's absolutely beautiful.

OP if you want a big digital viewfinder the 1dx or X-T1 (EVF) are the way to go.