Big bright viewfinders

[porina]

For the longest time, I use and still use DSLRs as my main high end camera. The viewfinder is ok. I got a compact travelzoom. The EVF in that is tiny and hardly visible in daylight.

 

I recently got binoculars. No comparison. The "how it appears" field of view is massive, and it left me wondering what modern mirrorless camera EVFs are like. I vaguely recall hearing about them going bigger than OVF can. Maybe I need to try it to find out. To those that have made the switch, did that help? Does it hurt if you need to go back?

 

I'm half debating getting a higher end superzoom bridge actually. I don't think I'll ever afford to rebuy into MILC and with an increased interest in video this could be the best of all worlds.

[AbydosOne]

55 minutes ago, porina said:

it left me wondering what modern mirrorless camera EVFs are like

I've only ever had EVFs (Sony α57 and Sony α7II), but I will say they're very clear and easy to use (probably even easier if I didn't have glasses like I do). I will admit that the direct coupling of a pentaprism is nice (like my Minolta STsi), but being able to have real-time effects/info overlayed (focus peaking especially) more than makes up for it, IMO.

[porina]

5 minutes ago, AbydosOne said:

I've only ever had EVFs (Sony α57 and Sony α7II), but I will say they're very clear and easy to use (probably even easier if I didn't have glasses like I do). I will admit that the direct coupling of a pentaprism is nice (like my Minolta STsi), but being able to have real-time effects/info overlayed (focus peaking especially) more than makes up for it, IMO.

I want to see the scene, unobstructed as possible. I'll tolerate focus points, so I know when it gets tracking wrong. Peaking is irrelevant to me as I'll never MF. Any other info can go around the outside, not over it. Actually, does that make sense? Since it is all digital display, then might as well use more of it for image. Maybe I could tolerate some overlay if the image is big enough that the overlay is very small in proportion. I can work around moderate display lag, especially if image review can be disabled to speedup resuming the live feed.

[danalog]

Definitely not an option for you but monochrome CRT EVFs on mirrorless cameras are excellent. Exceptionally bright and very sharp picture. I quite enjoy using the one on my XL1. 

All of the nice EVF cameras in my collection do have an option to disable certain overlays or UI elements on the EVF, I'd bet your DSLR would as well. 

The main problem I have with EVFs on is the color rendering, since the accuracy of those tiny LED displays was very poor for a while. Hard to adjust white balance on a display that isn't accurate to begin with. Even my mid 2010s Sony NEX-VG20 still suffers from that issue, though not as bad as my 90s and 00s cameras. OLED viewfinders have been around for a few years though and a few Sony NEX cameras actually have an OLED add-on. Colors are supposed to be great. 

[porina]

32 minutes ago, danalog said:

Definitely not an option for you but monochrome CRT EVFs on mirrorless cameras are excellent.

Didn't know that was a thing at all. I'd really need colour since most of my stuff is nature and wildlife. 

 

32 minutes ago, danalog said:

All of the nice EVF cameras in my collection do have an option to disable certain overlays or UI elements on the EVF, I'd bet your DSLR would as well. 

DSLR has OVF so the only overlay is AF points. If you compose using the screen on the back, yes you can turn stuff on and off, but that's generally unusable to me unless I'm on a tripod, which is uncommon.

 

32 minutes ago, danalog said:

The main problem I have with EVFs on is the color rendering, since the accuracy of those tiny LED displays was very poor for a while. Hard to adjust white balance on a display that isn't accurate to begin with.

AutoWB works well enough, again especially since I mainly deal with nature and wildlife, it's either sunny or cloudy, or something in between. Can always adjust in post anyway.

[sub68]

So i have used canon r6 for a bit and m50s. Those evfs are great and bright. my Panasonic gx 85 is bad but its cause its so small. 

[Vilacom]

Dunno what your budget is but the R1 has an amazing huge viewfinder, literally the best ive ever used even more than cinema viewfinders that are more expensive than the entire camera.

Definitely give it a shot if you have a camera store near  you that you can put it up to your face and check it out

[porina]

On 6/26/2025 at 11:15 PM, sub68 said:

So i have used canon r6 for a bit and m50s. Those evfs are great and bright. my Panasonic gx 85 is bad but its cause its so small. 

37 minutes ago, Vilacom said:

Dunno what your budget is but the R1 has an amazing huge viewfinder, literally the best ive ever used even more than cinema viewfinders that are more expensive than the entire camera.

I did half consider getting an R body and EF adapter to use existing lenses, but I have concerns how well that actually works, especially with tracking AF. I'm not paying for replacement set of lenses. Body price wise, R10 is about my comfort limit, maybe R7 would be a stretch if they are really that much better. R6 is too far. I have zero interest in full frame because laws of physics makes any useful lens on them far too expensive and heavy. APS-C is the sweet spot. I see there's also RP/R8. I have no idea what the spec is like between them, but guessing from the kit lens option they're FF so not an option. I also hate built in vertical grips so 1 series is not for me. I still have an ancient one. It's great as a doorstop.

 

Thus a higher end superzoom bridge might be a better overall solution if the viewfinder is good. It's been a while since I looked at them, but the 60x zoom models from  the likes of Sony, Canon, Panasonic could fit there. I don't like Sony's handling of video files though on my past experience with them, Panasonic video stabilisation is horrible, and I don't recall if any have regional frame rate locks. So I'd need to look all those up again.

I mis-remembered. The high zoom cameras all have tiny sensors. Bigger sensor ones have no useful zoom range. I'd need minimum 600mm FF equivalent with my existing Panasonic compact going to 720mm equivalent. Do Nikon still do the insane one? P1100 might be a modern version of it I'll look up later.

 

I'm now in a small town to I'd have to travel to find a bigger camera shop.

[Vilacom]

21 hours ago, porina said:

I did half consider getting an R body and EF adapter to use existing lenses, but I have concerns how well that actually works, especially with tracking AF. I'm not paying for replacement set of lenses. Body price wise, R10 is about my comfort limit, maybe R7 would be a stretch if they are really that much better. R6 is too far. I have zero interest in full frame because laws of physics makes any useful lens on them far too expensive and heavy. APS-C is the sweet spot. I see there's also RP/R8. I have no idea what the spec is like between them, but guessing from the kit lens option they're FF so not an option. I also hate built in vertical grips so 1 series is not for me. I still have an ancient one. It's great as a doorstop.

 

Thus a higher end superzoom bridge might be a better overall solution if the viewfinder is good. It's been a while since I looked at them, but the 60x zoom models from  the likes of Sony, Canon, Panasonic could fit there. I don't like Sony's handling of video files though on my past experience with them, Panasonic video stabilisation is horrible, and I don't recall if any have regional frame rate locks. So I'd need to look all those up again.

I mis-remembered. The high zoom cameras all have tiny sensors. Bigger sensor ones have no useful zoom range. I'd need minimum 600mm FF equivalent with my existing Panasonic compact going to 720mm equivalent. Do Nikon still do the insane one? P1100 might be a modern version of it I'll look up later.

 

I'm now in a small town to I'd have to travel to find a bigger camera shop.

The R7 is almost definitely the canon version you'd be looking for then, but honestly for your use case and your budget priorities you're probably mostly better off using a good quality phone.  

The P1100 definitely seems to have crazy long reach, but it also has a tiny sensor just like any of the other ones.  It may just be worthwhile to get a higher megapixel body thats more high quality and just crop to what you want, at least then you'll have the higher quality images and capability when you're not needing the insane reach those small sensors offer.  

Looks like if you are vigilant you can get an R7 for about $1000 used on ebay, definitely the way to go

[porina]

37 minutes ago, Vilacom said:

The R7 is almost definitely the canon version you'd be looking for then, but honestly for your use case and your budget priorities you're probably mostly better off using a good quality phone.  

Show me the phone that does at least 600mm equivalent without the picture looking like a total blur. The example use case is wildlife before you deviate further.

 

37 minutes ago, Vilacom said:

The P1100 definitely seems to have crazy long reach, but it also has a tiny sensor just like any of the other ones.  It may just be worthwhile to get a higher megapixel body thats more high quality and just crop to what you want, at least then you'll have the higher quality images and capability when you're not needing the insane reach those small sensors offer.  

No big and fast sensor has sufficient pixel density for much of a meaningful crop, and if I'm cropping the output, I'm also essentially cropping the viewfinder image negating the purpose here. I already crop output regardless of the camera.

 

To give another example, I have a 30x travelzoom compact and it isn't that bad on the long end vs my 7D2 with 400mm lens. The compact falls off faster under low light, but that isn't a problem. I'd say about double that should suffice, since air quality becomes a practical limiting factor.

 

Laws of physics dictate balancing sensor size and practical lens sizes. Those small sensor cameras can still be good enough.

 

37 minutes ago, Vilacom said:

Looks like if you are vigilant you can get an R7 for about $1000 used on ebay, definitely the way to go

I'd rather go new or buy from a reputable used camera shop of which I have a choice. Actually, it looks like used isn't much cheaper than new here. At least the EF adapter isn't much more.

 

The thing is I'm still wondering if a bridge style superzoom is more the sweet spot than a R7 which would essentially be a body swap for a 7D2 and I'm still left with other factors outside this thread like different carrying use cases. Back to the original point of starting this thread: it all comes back to the viewfinder. 

[porina]

I just had a shower which gave me time to think. And I do think I have the solution. Mount binoculars to my DSLR! I'm sure something could be done using the tripod foot on the lens. I might need another set of binoculars with a dedicated tripod mount as my current pair don't have that, but they're relatively inexpensive. Getting a custom adapter made will be the tricky part, since the binoculars would need to be aligned along the same optical axis as the camera. For the distances I'm shooting at, parallax error may be considered to be negligible.

[Vilacom]

1 hour ago, porina said:

Show me the phone that does at least 600mm equivalent without the picture looking like a total blur. The example use case is wildlife before you deviate further.

 

No big and fast sensor has sufficient pixel density for much of a meaningful crop, and if I'm cropping the output, I'm also essentially cropping the viewfinder image negating the purpose here. I already crop output regardless of the camera.

 

To give another example, I have a 30x travelzoom compact and it isn't that bad on the long end vs my 7D2 with 400mm lens. The compact falls off faster under low light, but that isn't a problem. I'd say about double that should suffice, since air quality becomes a practical limiting factor.

 

Laws of physics dictate balancing sensor size and practical lens sizes. Those small sensor cameras can still be good enough.

 

I'd rather go new or buy from a reputable used camera shop of which I have a choice. Actually, it looks like used isn't much cheaper than new here. At least the EF adapter isn't much more.

 

The thing is I'm still wondering if a bridge style superzoom is more the sweet spot than a R7 which would essentially be a body swap for a 7D2 and I'm still left with other factors outside this thread like different carrying use cases. Back to the original point of starting this thread: it all comes back to the viewfinder. 

I mean, no phone really does 600mm admittedly but the samsung S25 ultra has the 10x optical i believe and then you can crop from there.  It's not ideal, but it will likely do the job.

Since you're talking about extreme zoom for wildlife I really would say that an R7 with one of canons long lenses using a high aperture primes would be fantastic for you.  The R7+600mm F/11 combo would be spectacular for you assuming you're shooting on bright days.  That lens is widely available online for about $500 used.

Beyond that man, you're claiming to be looking for something with a large good viewfinder, the only way to really tell will be to put something in your hands and look through it.  I can only personally speak for the canon and sony systems.  Canon definitely has the better viewfinders(god knows why, seems like that should be pretty trivial for sony to put in given they literally produce displays) and that combo will almost certainly give you the best bang for the buck with a phenomenal sensor(about a 960mm equivalent with that lens) and then for those times you aren't using it for nature just throw a nifty fifty on and you'll have an amazing experience with top quality stuff.

But if you just want to stick with the extreme zooming superzoom stuff then by all means, they do what you say you want to do for sure, i just have no idea what kind of quality the EVFs have and of course the downsides of having a fixed lens on the camera.  

Ultimately you really need to make the decision based on how something feels in your hands and looks to your eye.  There really aren't cameras that will ever compete with a really good pair of binoculars, my fathers swarovski binoculars blow any of my cameras out of the water, even the R1.   You're always going to be limited by size and space in the camera body compared to the binoculars that don't have to worry about any of that. 

[porina]

8 hours ago, Vilacom said:

The R7+600mm F/11 combo would be spectacular for you assuming you're shooting on bright days.  That lens is widely available online for about $500 used.

Ooh, I didn't know that existed, but fixed focal length will be problematic.

 

8 hours ago, Vilacom said:

you're claiming to be looking for something with a large good viewfinder, the only way to really tell will be to put something in your hands and look through it.  I can only personally speak for the canon and sony systems.  Canon definitely has the better viewfinders

One of the original questions I posed at the start is for anyone who moved from DSLR to mirrorless, what was the change in viewfinder like. Do you have experience of that?

 

I know there is no substitute for getting hands on, but finding a sufficiently large camera store where I am currently is a problem.

 

8 hours ago, Vilacom said:

of course the downsides of having a fixed lens on the camera.  

There are many upsides as well as the downsides. Mainly size and weight.

 

8 hours ago, Vilacom said:

You're always going to be limited by size and space in the camera body compared to the binoculars that don't have to worry about any of that. 

The physical problem is the through-the-lens design. Logically, the only way to fix that is to not look through the lens. I have some ideas around that. As a variation of my idea of mounting binoculars onto my lens, maybe a spotting scope is more appropriate. I might even have the spare parts lying around from astrophotography.

[Blue4130]

17 hours ago, porina said:

I just had a shower which gave me time to think. And I do think I have the solution. Mount binoculars to my DSLR! I'm sure something could be done using the tripod foot on the lens. I might need another set of binoculars with a dedicated tripod mount as my current pair don't have that, but they're relatively inexpensive. Getting a custom adapter made will be the tricky part, since the binoculars would need to be aligned along the same optical axis as the camera. For the distances I'm shooting at, parallax error may be considered to be negligible.

The image circle of binoculars is not going to cover even a m43 sensor let alone aps-c.

[porina]

51 minutes ago, Blue4130 said:

The image circle of binoculars is not going to cover even a m43 sensor let alone aps-c.

The binoculars will be a separate viewfinder used in parallel to camera+lens. I'll have to trust the camera AF to work as I wont be able to check it in real time. The tricky part will be mounting and aligning it.

[Blue4130]

1 hour ago, porina said:

The binoculars will be a separate viewfinder used in parallel to camera+lens. I'll have to trust the camera AF to work as I wont be able to check it in real time. The tricky part will be mounting and aligning it.

I fail to see the point of this. The whole point of a viewfinder is to know what the image will look like. You don't want the viewfinder to have a different magnification than the camera, and if it is the same magnification, just use the cameras viewfinder.

[porina]

9 minutes ago, Blue4130 said:

I fail to see the point of this. The whole point of a viewfinder is to know what the image will look like. You don't want the viewfinder to have a different magnification than the camera, and if it is the same magnification, just use the cameras viewfinder.

The basic point of a viewfinder is to frame a shot, and optionally any other information. Many cameras in the past have viewfinders that are greater field of view than the capture, such as rangefinders and related. With binoculars I'd avoid all the limitations and frustrations traditional implementations often have.

• Bigger apparent field of view - looks bigger
• Bigger subject plane field of view - help with tracking and targeting subjects. I will have to learn where the captured image actually is unless I can add a discreet overlay to the binoculars
• Continuous unobstructed view - no mirror blackout or sensor readout delay
• No significant latency beyond photos moving around - no processing delays

There are some minor tradeoffs I'm willing to accept

• I have no idea if the camera AF is actually on subject, but this could be offset by better tracking ability
• No other info or warnings if anything goes wrong, until I check
• Weight/size/balance/stability - tripod mounts for binoculars tend to be a single point often near the front so it might wobble with motion.

I could also try the reverse of this. Instead of mounting binoculars to a large camera, I could mount a small camera to binoculars. I'll have to give that some further thought. Trinoculars only seem to exist in microscopy. 

[Blue4130]

6 hours ago, porina said:

The basic point of a viewfinder is to frame a shot, and optionally any other information. Many cameras in the past have viewfinders that are greater field of view than the capture, such as rangefinders and related. With binoculars I'd avoid all the limitations and frustrations traditional implementations often have.

• Bigger apparent field of view - looks bigger
• Bigger subject plane field of view - help with tracking and targeting subjects. I will have to learn where the captured image actually is unless I can add a discreet overlay to the binoculars
• Continuous unobstructed view - no mirror blackout or sensor readout delay
• No significant latency beyond photos moving around - no processing delays

There are some minor tradeoffs I'm willing to accept

• I have no idea if the camera AF is actually on subject, but this could be offset by better tracking ability
• No other info or warnings if anything goes wrong, until I check
• Weight/size/balance/stability - tripod mounts for binoculars tend to be a single point often near the front so it might wobble with motion.

I could also try the reverse of this. Instead of mounting binoculars to a large camera, I could mount a small camera to binoculars. I'll have to give that some further thought. Trinoculars only seem to exist in microscopy. 

I've been using a Leica as my main camera for over 20 years. I know what a viewfinder is for and the benefits of them. I also know that a decoupled/not through the lens viewfinders are nearly unusable for lenses longer than 200mm, let alone 600mm. The parallax would be nearly impossible to correct for.

[porina]

6 hours ago, Blue4130 said:

The parallax would be nearly impossible to correct for.

It is basic mathematics. For a close one, I'd agree, but that is not the use case here. Parallax would be insignificant for a distant subject.

[Blue4130]

6 hours ago, porina said:

It is basic mathematics. For a close one, I'd agree, but that is not the use case here. Parallax would be insignificant for a distant subject.

Parallax sure, but alignment will be a nightmare.

[Matttis]

A friend of mine owns the Canon R1 and the R5 II. Their viewfinders really are stupidly large (in a good way) Brightness is good, too.
I also tried a Nikon Z6 III at a store. Brightness of the finder must have been set to max because what the reviews said is true, it's incredibly bright! Too bright if you ask me, at least the way the unit I tried was set up. To me the total brightness is kinda irrelevant, the brightness has to represent the actual exposure because that is one of the key advantages of using an EVF.
Right now I'm using a Z7 II and before that a Z50. Their viewfinders are both good enough for me.

[porina]

15 minutes ago, Matttis said:

To me the total brightness is kinda irrelevant, the brightness has to represent the actual exposure because that is one of the key advantages of using an EVF.

To me exposure is separate from simple visibility. A travel camera I use is a Panasonic travel zoom, and it has a tiny EVF. I hate using it in sunlight because it is so dim compared to the real world that any light leakage, of which there is a lot, makes it hard to see. So there's two dimensions. Overall brightness of the display so you can see what you're shooting, and separately feedback on the exposure levels.

 

I haven't done it in a long time, but I used to do a lot of wildlife and I'd keep shooting as the sun goes down. I can still see through the OVF long after the sensor gives up on producing a usable image at a relevant hand held shutter speed.