Canon EOS D60Canon updates their D30 Semi Pro SLR with a 6 megapixel sensor and other improvements, and sets a new low-price point in the process!<<Design :(Previous) | (Next): Optics>> Page 4:ViewfinderReview First Posted: 2/22/2002 |
Viewfinder
A near-duplicate of the D30's viewfinder, the D60's viewfinder is excellent
on all fronts, providing great information, easy use, and high accuracy. Relative
to the viewfinder display in the D30, the D60 adds information on maximum shots
available in the buffer, remaining frames, and a flash exposure compensation
icon to alert you whenever you've got exposure compensation dialed in for the
flash. While we don't have a formal test for it, the "eyepoint" of
the viewfinder seemed quite high, making it comfortable to use with eyeglasses.
The dioptric correction is also excellent, covering a broad range from -3 to
+1 diopters. I measured its accuracy at 94 percent,
closely agreeing with Canon's official specification of 95 percent frame coverage.
(I have to say though, that I'd really like to see it be a full 100% coverage
- Viewfinder inaccuracy is a pet peeve of mine.) The viewfinder display conveys
a lot of information about exposure and camera status, as shown in the illustration
below. (Courtesy Canon USA, Inc.)
Important to note in discussing the D60's viewfinder system is that the rear-panel LCD display is not usable as a viewfinder. Instead, the optical viewfinder uses a mirror to intercept the image on the way to the shutter and the sensor. Thus, when the camera isn't actively taking a picture, the light from the lens is directed only to the optical viewfinder, and so isn't available to the sensor to drive a live viewfinder display on the LCD. With the exception of the Olympus E-10 and E-20 (which use a beam-splitter prism instead of a mirror, at some cost in light sensitivity), all digital SLRs operate in this fashion.
While
not strictly a viewfinder function, the capture-mode Info display shown on
the rear-panel LCD screen probably deserves mention at this point. The optical
viewfinder carries quite a bit of information about camera status as shown
above, but there's even more available on the rear panel, just by pressing
the Info button. Rather than the exposure settings shown in the optical viewfinder,
this display shows shooting mode, auto-bracketing and flash exposure compensation,
shots and memory card space remaining, ISO setting, and the status of all
custom-function options selected (albeit in a very terse numerical format).
New to this display since the D30 is the "Parameters" indicator
in the middle: The D60 now supports multiple parameter settings, that can
be loaded from a host computer for rapid selection. Between this screen, the
optical viewfinder display, and the LCD data readout on the camera's top,
the D60 is one of the most "informative" cameras I've yet worked
with.
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