The OVF Killer?

I sincerely hope they work out the delays in electronic connections. OVF is still the only "real time" viewing solution, the importance of which is relative to the user task at hand.

EVF is not only about resolution. Current Sony EVF have enough resolution. You should care about delays, dynamic range, color accuracy, black outs and so on.

Well, in 10 years I think we will find that the OVF will be very rare, but probably not completely extinguished.

I think that the EVF resolution in SLT-A65/A77, NEX-7 and the external one for NEC-5N is good enough already. My eyes can't see any lines or pixels in these (which they are able to do in all other EVFs out there)...

The improvments I'm expecting to see is even faster refresh rates, a view closer to what the image sensor sees (although already much closer to this than the OVF, which of course is closer to what the eyes are seeing), including such as better dynamic range and colour rendition.


Edit: While I was writing, four of you were quicker...



Edited by Swede101 - 30 January 2012 at 16:26

rovhazman wrote: EVF is not only about resolution. Current Sony EVF have enough resolution. You should care about delays, dynamic range, color accuracy, black outs and so on.

Considering that ultimately it is electronics that is not just delivering image to the VF but also capturing the image, I firmly believe that OVF will be obsolete in a few years.

rovhazman wrote: EVF is not only about resolution. Current Sony EVF have enough resolution. You should care about delays, dynamic range, color accuracy, black outs and so on.

I Totally agree... the EVF on the a77 looks pretty good, but the delay for it to power on is unacceptable. I have missed many shots because it has not turned on in time.

What is the delay for a77 poweron?

Tricky01 wrote: --- Personally I agree the OVF is on it's way out but having written the paragraph above I think I just convinced myself it's further away than I thought when I started this post!

Really? :-)

Well, let us check your main points then.

Tricky01 wrote: --- - startup delay (too long) - lag between event and VF (already pretty small but on my brief test I thought it was behind) - Issues in low light ---

1) I don't think it is going to take very long to decrease the startup delay.

2) This lag was substantially shortened from the A33/A55 EVF and to the A65/A77 and the NEX EVFs - the refresh rate increased by around 10 times within one year. This lag is short enough in most cases. After all, our threads are not filled with A33/A55 users complaining about their horrible EVF lag... Still, this much smaller lag may of course be a little too long in some cases. However, I don't think it would be impossible to improve this by another 2 or 3 times in a year or so. Will perhaps come when the new fullformat cameras are expected to show up (probably around Q4)?

3) Low light issues: OK, but to be fair we should also mention the issues with OVFs in that respect. When you can't identify whom you have in front of you with your OVF, you can with the EVF - even if it is noisy and with slow refresh rate.

Tricky01 wrote: --- I guess the hardest issue for the EVF is going to be how it copes at the extremes in the highlights and in the shadows throughout the frame; the areas our eyes compensate for through OVF. ---

That may very well be so. However, it depends hugely on what you want. Do you want an EVF that looks like a good OVF? I doubt that will happen in my lifetime. Or do you want something that is closer to what the sensor sees than the current Sony EVFs? I'm sure that will happen.

I know which of these I'd want o future OVFs. :-)

And in order to continue to be fair - a list of what the OVFs are missing compared to what the EVFs are capable of, would be MUCH longer!


Edit: Spelling correction.



Edited by Swede101 - 31 January 2012 at 01:24