Last month, the New York Times published a piece in their Trends column, A Liberated View of the World as Viewfinders Eclipse Eyepieces (free registration required). In it, they described the a trend where the eyepiece viewfinder on consumer digital cameras are being phased out in favor of LCD viewfinder screens. I’ve noticed that some of the new digital point-and-shoots only have an LCD screen on them now. I suppose I understand why things are trending in that direction, but I just can’t behind it.
From an engineering point of view:
- How does one take a picture with an LCD screen when it’s really bright outside?
- Doesn’t the LCD screen drain the battery quickly?
- Can one take a picture when one has enough battery to power the sensor, but not enough to power the LCD?
Maybe some of my friends with digital point-and-shoots can enlighten me 
From a philosophical point of view, I like the eyepiece viewfinder. When I hold the camera up against my eye, it blocks out the rest of the world and helps me focus on the scene I am trying to capture. Looking through the eyepiece, especially on an SLR, means that I am seeing what the lens is seeing. The lens is effectively an extension of my eye. Light reflecting off the subject travels through the front of the lens, bends its way through the camera on glass and mirrors, and then strikes the rods and cones on my retina in a slightly myopic fashion. One nonstop ray of light. As they say, it helps me to be one with the camera and with the scene. I suppose one can do the same with an LCD too because the LCD is projecting what the lens is seeing, but one is doing that at arms length, as if the camera is an extension of the arm and not of the eye. Using an LCD viewfinder, the light reflecting from the subject has been translated into a digital electronic signal and then converted back into light by the liquid crystals. There’s a layer of interpretation between the scene and me and I can’t tell if the color is real and how clear the photo will really be. Who knows though, when it comes down to it, it’s all particles and waves of energy in the end.
Maybe it’s just a personal preference, maybe it’s me clinging on to the ways of the old, but I hope they never design the eyepiece out of the digital SLR. Ah, who am I kidding, I’m a curmudgeon when it comes to technology. Figure that for a software engineer!
