1689 - Make Yourself At Home


It’s Friday, I’m on the train to Carinthia and here are two images made this morning.

The B&W image is one that I wasn’t able to compose quite as I would have liked it. I would have needed to lie down or at least go very low and use the tiltable electronic viewfinder. But then, the probably best solution would have been a tilt/swivel LCD like on the Canon G12, the Nikon D5100 or the Sony A55, to name just a few.

I’m really curious how Nikon positions this kind of display. It debuted on the D5000, but none of the other cameras in that series had it, neither on the low, nor on the high end. The D5100 has it again, the 3100 and the D7000 don’t. Hmm … can I have that on the D400 please?

Of course it won’t happen. I really ask myself, what does Nikon think? Such a display is tremendously useful and opens a whole class of interesting opportunities. Imagine a macro mounted and the camera positioned on the ground between the grasses and weeds. Can you say jungle?

Or used with a wide-angle (basically what I did here). Shooting from unusual positions is so much easier with a tilt/swivel display.

Apropos Sony A55. I really don’t like the company but sometimes they have a product that deeply impresses me. The A55 is such a product. It has this semi-transparent mirror, that always stays down, even for shooting, and the mirror is not used for the viewfinder but only for phase-detect autofocus. In fact, it has an electronic viewfinder and no optical viewfinder at all, but if you ever see one in a shop, have a look through its viewfinder. It’s gorgeous! It’s easily the best viewfinder that I’ve ever seen, my D300 definitely included. I guess that’s the future. Don’t believe me? Have a look for yourself, but I warn you, it hurts to use your own camera afterwards 🙂

The Song of the Day is “Make Yourself At Home” by Cab Calloway. Hear it on YouTube.


There are 2 comments

Markus Spring   (2011-06-04)

Both of today's images work for me - the "empty center" composition of the first one is a real eye-catcher. Re. viewfinders: As rewarding as photography with the LX3 can be, a good eye-level viewfinder is something I miss terribly. I started to select my clothes in respect to the camera - a white polo is a no-go for photography with the LX3 in sunshine, as all I see in the LCD is a reflection of myself. But a full tilt/swivel LCD in addition to a "real" viewfinder is more than only nice to have, as your off-zero-level composition of the 2nd image proves. I share your position re. Sony (the latest PS network disaster is only another brick in the wall, with the Sony-distributed-rootkit being the worst imaginable disregard of customers), but coming from Minolta, it was the logical path. My A700 starts to show wear and tear after 50.000 exposures, so the long awaited SLT A77 might be the next step, combining in-body-stabilisation, an electronic viewfinder that would allow to see depth of field again, and live-view with a hinged display. It might well be a killer feature-set.

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Flo (tonebytone)   (2011-06-05)

Andreas, altho I like both these images, I prefer the B&W. I love the very low POV and how the shadow is the leading line into the image. The tilt is lovely, too. Had you been able to sit the camera on the ground, you might have lost the tilt. This is happy serendipity at its best, in my humble opinion. I feel like I'm a pigeon on the sidewalk, hunting for specks of food - and suddenly I look up and there's these big curved objects in my way. I cluck and decide to move around them, or maybe hunt in between them. Markus, I too can not review my images in the Nikon D300's screen - nor can I use live view successfully when there's bright sunlight outside. It isn't only white clothing that's a no-no - it's any light colored cloth. Plus sometimes, depending on the sun's angle, even in shade, sometimes I can't see into that screen worth a darn. I do have the Hoodman, but it gets in the way and pops off if I'm not careful. I think that this is probably true with almost any camera's back screen - except for the Sony you mentioned, or with any screen that tilts and swivels. Hugs, Flo

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