Canon EOS 20DBy: Shawn Barnett and Dave EtchellsSlightly smaller and lighter upgrade brings greater speed and ease of use along with higher res and lower image noise. <<Design :(Previous) | (Next): Optics>> Page 5:ViewfinderReview First Posted: 08/19/2004, Update: 11/19/2004 |
Viewfinder
Nearly
identical to the 10Ds viewfinder along the bottom, the 20D's optical viewfinder
is excellent, providing a wealth of information and great accuracy. Because
the 20D now features nine AF points, the viewfinder shows nine focus point boxes
arrayed in a diamond pattern. Lining the bottom of the display is a strip of
information reporting everything from aperture and shutter speed to flash status
and the maximum number of burst shots available, with the addition of the new
White Balance Correction indicator. While I don't have a formal test for it,
the "eyepoint" of the viewfinder seemed fairly high, making it usable
with eyeglasses, although I had to press the lenses of my glasses up against
the eyecup to see the full viewfinder area. (Courtesy Canon USA, Inc.)
It's important to note in discussing the 20D'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 used 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 deserves mention here. 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 date/time,
autoexposure bracketing amount, white balance bracketing amount, processing
parameter setting, image review status, image review time, color temperature
setting (if selected), ISO speed, auto rotate status, auto power off time, flash
exposure compensation amount, and megabytes of remaining memory card capacity.
Between this screen, the optical viewfinder display, and the LCD data readout
on the camera's top, the 20D offers no shortage of information.
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