>
> Hmmm. I wonder why it has a "CMOS Look" when the technology is NMOS. :-)
>
Well, if it quacks like a duck, I'd say that it's essentially a duck by
another name.
Without a doubt, this camera has one of the most horrid viewfinders ever put
into a DSLR. I was about to say that it wasn't really all that bad, but I'm
going to say that this is one of the lowest points of product development to
ever emerge from Olympus. The product managers that determined that this
tiny and really dark viewfinder was worthy of foisting onto the buying
public should be ashamed. The brightness is around two-stops darker than the
E-1 and about a sixth the apparant "surface area" of an OM viewfinder. The
term "shameful" is an understatement.
Now,the question is does it matter?
First of all, with live-view, it doesn't matter as much as it could. Having
viewing/framing options is a saving grace of this camera.
Secondly, if you compare the viewfinder to a Leica M-rangefinder with a
0.68x finder, the image area size of a 50mm lens is not too different. I've
been thinking about this and if you treat the camera like a rangefinder
camera, the viewfinder is used for framing not fine-compositing like you do
on a 4x5 ground-glass. I've been experimenting in shooting the L1 in the
"rangefinder way" and using the viewfinder for essentially just framing, and
it actually works well this way. Of course it helps that the general
formfactor of the camera makes this method work. Placing a 24/2.8 on the
camera and zone-focusing it makes this a very slick close-in people camera.
Oh, I did find a couple more slick features of the camera. I think I
mentioned that the direction of the aperture ring and shutter dials work
correctly in relation to the "match-needle" exposure display. But the one
that really had me smiling is the countdown timer on the display when doing
a time-exposure. If you are shooting a 25 second exposure it counts down
for you. And if you have the NR turned on, the second exposure is also
counted out for you too. Nice!
Well, everything is all packed. The next two days I'll be shooting probably
2000-3000 pictures so we'll see how it handles under heavy load. I've got
tons of gear going with me, but the way I have the kit configured, only two
cameras at a time--one film, one digital.
AG
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