On Thu, Oct 2, 2008 at 12:53 PM, Brooke Clarke wrote: > What's needed is a Live View camera where the LCD is viewed through an eyepiece > like on a SLR camera and there's no mirror. Your eye is focused at infinity > just like in a SLR. A good quality visual display (OLED, LCD, etc) with very good image processing and optics still has the following problems: - Cost - much more expensive than a screen, prism, and mirror - Latency - even a high end camera has a live view that is perceptibly behind the actual light coming in - would make sports and other high speed trigger finger photographers annoyed, preventing some shots, although in most cases they'll be able to get used to it. - Still won't be able to approach the resolution and color gamut of the sensor, nevermind what the eye sees through a mirror assembly - Will have a greater cost in battery life - Requires different AF and other sensor mechanisms than what are currently used (a good AF sensor isn't just looking at the contrast of a few pixels - it uses a split prism type system in front of a few pixels worth of sensors.) It is unlikely that one can design a system which has none of these drawbacks, and therefore the mirror system isn't an old idea past it's time - it remains the best solution to a number of issues. There are cameras (as you point out) without a mirror, so you can optimixe the body for the situation, and most DSLRs can flip the mirror up, delay, and then take the picture to eliminate that concern altogether, except for fast paced situations (and in that case mirror shake is probably not going to matter). Still, I'm sure these will be overcome in time. Would be interesting to see the camera bodies that come out of that, though - the rebels are already small. Get rid of the mirror, and it'll be a flat pack with a lens on it... -Adam -- EARTH DAY 2008 Tuesday April 22 Save Money * Save Oil * Save Lives * Save the Planet http://www.driveslowly.org -- http://www.piclist.com PIC/SX FAQ & list archive View/change your membership options at http://mailman.mit.edu/mailman/listinfo/piclist