Viewfinder (redirected from viewfinders)

viewfinder

The preview window on a camera that is used to frame, focus and take the picture. On analog cameras, the viewfinder is an eye-sized window that must be pressed against the face. Point-and-shoot digital cameras use small LCD screens that are viewed several inches from the eyes.

Professional photographers generally prefer a viewfinder because it lets them focus on framing the picture. In addition, the LCD screen can become very washed out in bright sunlight, making it almost impossible to frame the picture.

Digital SLRs and Prosumer Cameras
Using optical lenses or a tiny microdisplay, digital SLR (DSLR) cameras employ the eye-sized viewfinder for taking pictures and an LCD screen for viewing the results. Increasingly, DSLRs provide the option of using the LCD screen for taking pictures, known as "live preview" or "live view." See DSLR.

Prosumer cameras have fixed lenses like point-and-shoot cameras, but they also have manual focus, aperture and shutter speed settings like DSLRs. Prosumer cameras generally offer both viewfinder and LCD screen for taking the picture. See prosumer and parallax error.

Viewfinder and LCD

This prosumer camera has both viewfinder and live preview screen. The viewfinder has two advantages. Since it is held against the face, it helps steady the camera, and it uses less battery than the LCD screen.

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viewfinder

a device on a camera, consisting of a lens system and sometimes a ground-glass screen, enabling the user to see what will be included in his photograph

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viewfinder [′vyü‚fīn·dər]

(electronics)

An auxiliary optical or electronic device attached to a television camera so the operator can see the scene as the camera sees it.

(optics)

A device which provides the user of a camera with the view of the subject that is focused by the lens.

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Viewfinder 

an optical device on still and movie cameras that is used for determining the borders (frame) of the image of an object that is being photographed. A viewfinder is de-signed for a camera lens with a fixed focal length. Cameras with interchangeable lenses having different focal lengths require the use of separate viewfinder attachments for each lens or of universal viewfinders, which consist of a set of miniature lenses with different focal lengths, mounted on a rotating disk. Types of viewfinders include the frame (iconometers), telescopic, and reflecting. Professional movie cameras often have mirror viewfinders with a mat collective lens and a sight.

Parallax, which is the difference between the borders of the image as observed in the viewfinder and as actually re-corded on the film, occurs when the optical axis of the viewfinder does not coincide with the optical axis of the camera lens. Parallax is especially great when photographing at small distances. A series of rectangular frames that permit corrections when photographing at various distances are mounted in the field of view of some viewfinders to eliminate parallax. Parallax is absent in single-lens reflex cameras and in movie cameras with a mirror shutter. In some cameras (for example, the FED and Zorkii) the viewfinder is coupled in a single unit with an optical range finder.