So, I’ve been the proud and fortunate owner of the Sony Alpha A77 for a few months now. Like many, one of my primary concerns with the camera was the EVF, or electronic view finder. Like so many, I was concerned about image quality, response speed, accuracy of colors and exposure, etc. etc. The list of fears went on and on.
8mm Shot of Brisbane Marina
My Vote: EVF preferred over OVF
My impressions of the EVF thus far is that it is superior to the A700 optical viewfinder, which already, was brighter and larger than most APS-C DSLR optical viewfinders, bested by the A900′s full frame optical viewfinder. When I say superior, I am referring to the following:
Accuracy of composition
- With an EVF, you get 100% of the framed shot. With the A700, as great as it was, you would always end up with a mysterious border of a few pixels. Not enough to spoil most compositions, but leaves the door open to distracting elements getting in the shot, which you had thought were composed out.
Accuracy of exposure
- The EVF does what the OVF can’t: give you a prediction of how your exposed shot will look. At 1/800th of a second, at 8 seconds, or at 18 seconds… darkness comes to life with an EVF. It isn’t perfect, no. But then again, neither is the OVF.
What most people complain about, however, are the following:
Refresh rate of the EVF
- Yes, while the refresh rate is amazing, it isn’t so fast that you don’t notice pan lag or other factors. Physics is on OVF’s side here.
Blackout during shooting
- True. Shoot sequential at slower speeds, and you will see screen blackout. If you do image review, you will get blackout and a flicker of the last image you shot. I turn off image review and shoot at 5fps, since 3fps will result in extended blackouts. However, blackouts were present with OVF(s), so this is really more an exchange than a new issue.
Noisey/Grainy/Color casts
- You have simply replaced a view that was too dark to see anything in with one that is grainy and color casted because of gain amplification. I consider this to be an exchange of faults as well.