Problems with a850/a900 viewfinder

[Bruce Oudekerk]

I had a very unpleasant surprise Sunday. I’ve been waffling on purchasing the a850 and wouldn’t make a decision until I’d actually held one and checked out some issues. Hunts Photo in Boston didn’t have an a850 but did have a similar a900 for me to look at. But it was an entirely new issue that blindsided me. Isn’t it always?

I wear glasses and can’t see the entire viewfinder image at once no matter how much I force my face into the viewfinder. Not even close unless I take off the eyecup and shove my face into the camera while forcing my glasses into my face. Quite simply, the very feature every reviewer/user brags about makes this camera unusable to me. For a frame of reference the a700 is OK and my 7D is a little better than that. Both are workable. 35mm SLR film cameras have been no problem.

I’m starting to get paranoid, as if the camera gods wish me ill. I’m the same guy who has publicly posted his complaint that the wonderful a700 is not usable for me. The toggle/joystick pokes me in the nose because I’m a left eyed shooter. A BUNCH of other wrong eyed shooters have responded that it is not an issue with them and some have even offered constructive and clever workarounds. I must say the a900 (and presumably the a850) very much surprises me that this viewfinder issue should arise. My cousin, who wears glasses, was with me at Hunts. He is an avid photographer and shoots with a Nikon D200. He couldn’t see the corners in the a900 viewfinder, either, without moving his head/eye around the viewfinder eyepiece. Last night some friends came over to my house and we discussed the issue. Two of them wear eyeglasses and one who shoots with Canon 20D/40D couldn’t even see the corners of my KM 7D. I seriously suspect the a900 would prove to be much, much worse. The other glass wearer tonight shoots with an Oly E3 and had no problems at all with my 7D…he had lots of wiggle room, apparently more than me.

A few solutions have occurred to me and taking my glasses off, getting Lasik surgery or buying contacts are not options; I wear glasses for a reason.
The elegant solution is NOT moving the head around and peering into the nok and crannies. That can’t be conducive to good composition except for the most talented among us. But rather it is to do what Canon has done and provide an eyepiece extension that slightly diminishes the viewfinder image size, allowing eyeglass wearers to see the entire image if they wish to. But it should be of decent optical quality …not a Cracker Jacks novelty like the Canon EP-EX15 which I believe would fit on the a900/a850. It provides 15mm eye relief AND reduces the image 30%. Of course I don’t know if they mean 30% dimensionally H/W or area-wise. That’s a huge difference. Regardless, considering the size of the a900 image this might be acceptable. I had read about this viewfinder extension having barrel distortion and I’ll have to judge my threshold of pain on that issue when I actually try one. I find it amazing that Canon thought enough of a problem to provide a solution BUT didn’t correct for something that rudimentary. Perhaps other eyepiece extensions are sold by third party to change the eye point and are labeled under different designations that I am unaware of.

A long shot would be to use an aftermarket or Sony diopter assuming it made the resultant image somewhat smaller and I could compensate with the in-camera diopter adjustment. My understanding of a diopter is that it just changes the apparent distance the eye has to focus on to see an image in the viewfinder. I was hoping an external diopter would have other ancillary properties that would help me see the entire viewfinder image while using my glasses. The positioning of the internal diopter adjustment makes little difference in the image size we see. Never having used an external diopter I have no idea if it not only moves the plane of focus or if it magnifies or reduces the image somewhat depending on the diopter number. ie does the viewfinder image look any bigger or smaller? Can anyone comment on this?

…As an aside does anyone know why Nikon makes a number 0 diopter? I ran across this in my research. What could they possibly be used for since by definition they don’t do anything??? LOL

An even longer shot would be that the a850 has a slightly smaller image in the viewfinder or a more distant eyepoint…it does have a different prism. Then I could perhaps use the camera without any eyecup or perhaps an aftermarket thinner eyecup to get my eye closer.

The Sony magnifier is going in the wrong direction unfortunately. I wonder if the simple optic in it could be reversed to make it a 'negative' magnification.

Can anyone else think of any other solutions?

I believe that the vast majority of less expensive dSLRs have much smaller viewfinder images and thus are easier to see the entirety of the image at once. I also believe that the problem varies from user to user. I have not had issues with any of the APS-C cameras that I have handled and that’s a substantial number of prosumer models. The more professional FF cameras seem to be problematic. However, I CAN see the entire image in the D700, probably because of the small flattened eyecup and the position of the viewfinder vs. the back LCD. Surely if all or even most eyeglass wearers were having problems, this issue would have been talked about repeatedly. So how come no one else is having any problems like this or at least talking about it. No one is going to do anything about it if we are silent.

Bruce

[David Kilpatrick]

Bruce, I have read your dPreview thread on this and the replies. The short answer is that it's you not the camera, since the eyepoint and general finder geometry of the A900 are equal to or better than any earlier SLRs from Minolta and most from other makers. To get anything much better you need something no longer made, like a Nikon F5-based Kodak DCS760 which has a huge detachable prism (the only digital SLR to offer that) with a large round eyepiece having no surrounding rubber.

You can remove the A900 rubber eyepiece surround. The camera works perfectly well without it. This does allow (rather scratchy) contact with specs and a closer eyeball position.

What I find is that people who have problems with SLR finders have a habitual head position which works against them - a head held upright, looking straight ahead posture even when using a camera. When aiming a camera I tend to stoop slightly, a bit hunched at the shoulder, head down a touch and chin tucked in. I look from 'under my eyebrows' and when the rubber surround is firmly pressed against my eyebrow, the angle of my face is such that I can get my hand between the focusing screen and my nose - but my eye is very close to the finder, with or without specs. I wear fairly narrow rectangular specs, the entire glass can be pushed under my eyebrow and I can easily look over or under the glasses. I do have some larger specs and these are nothing like as convenient, they can't be pushed around as freely, nor can I peer over or under them.

Also, I rarely try to keep the camera parallel to my face. Often I will use it at a 45 degree angle, with left or right eye, head tilted and angled sideways so the camera touches my cheeck and the side of my nose, and the eyepiece tucks into to outer corner of the orbit of my eye.

If I try to look straight ahead and place the camera in a straight line and hold it in two hands sort of plane-parallel, my nose touches the screen when my eye is so far from the ocular I can't even see the entire screen on an A350 or my Nikon D5000, let alone the A900.

But I have been using cameras for decades, and other optical devices, and I angle my head as required for the most effective and comfortable viewing.

David

[InTheSky]

I'm wearing glasses and I'm -5.0 myopia both eyes and I never remove my glasses when I take picture (without my glasses I'm not able to see correctly a subject face at more than 35 cm than my face). And the dioptre adjustment is not able to go enough to correct my view.

I found that the A900 is the better finder I have experimented so far. (Minolta 7D and A700). I'm shooting a lot with hold manual lenses manual focus and also rock concert where there is not enough light for automatic focus. Also doing Macro at 1:1 and 2:1 where just eyes can do the job (without tripod in action following moving insect)

Probably this depends of the kind of viewing problem of the eyes.

Regards,

Frank

[Bruce Oudekerk]

I very much appreciate your thoughtful reply. And I know it’s me.

But contrary to your response, I don’t believe its my shooting/head position and thus it MUST be a combination of glasses, prescription, index of refraction and facial features that make the issue manifest itself. Many having glasses have less of an issue and some have more. You probably have read my complaint of the a700 (and to a lesser degree the a900) 4 way toggle ‘poking’ my nose. It’s because I’m a left eyed shooter AND forcing my face into the camera to get my eye close enough to the viewfinder. I never had this severe an eye relief problem with my Konica, Nikormat, Mamyia Sekor or Canon TLb or Canon A1 film cameras or any of the many, many dozens of 35 mm camera models my photography students have used in over 3 decades. The first camera I’ve had a problem with is the a700 with the 4 way toggle irretating my nose and even then I can see the entire frame and of course it was never a significant issue with my KM 7D or older Oly E20n.

My glasses are made of very flexible metal and are fairly narrow. With the 7D I always force my eye into the eyecup to the point it is significantly distorting the frame and my nose is pressed hard on the back of the camera. No matter how I twist or turn the camera I can not get the eyepiece closer. While experimenting yesterday I found I can get a little closer if I turn the camera upside down. It looks stupid but it’s a reasonably effective solution to a problem I don’t have. I have retained the eyecup on the 7D but on another camera, removing the eyecup could help somewhat. I never used an eyecup on my Canon A1 film camera for that reason and scratched every pair of glasses I ever owned during the 25 years I used it. It was and is a great camera.

I do have a large head but I’m a big guy and it’s reasonably proportional to the rest of me. My eyes aren’t sunken and I don’t have a heavy occipital ridge, nor do I have a large nose, although it’s fairly broad. I doubt that being bald is a factor:) Overwhelmingly my biggest oddity is that my vision is poor… modest nearsightedness combined with a fair amount of astigmatism and I have high index of refraction plastic lenses. So it’s some sort of combination of head and glasses…both of which are admittedly ME. But its obvious there are a lot of ‘MEs’ floating around.

Earlier today I was helping a pro photographer who shoots with a Canon 5D and wears glasses…he has no problem…If I took the eyecup off, nor would I. Then I stopped into the local camera store where they sell Canon. I was looking for the Canon eyepiece extender; I suppose it might fit on the a850. One of the employees was an older guy but younger then me <sigh>. He wore glasses and took them off to shoot, but he’s farsighted. One other didn’t wear glasses and acted like I had three heads. The third was a very knowledgeable nearsighted young guy who shoots with a FF digital… Nikon… I think. He pushes his glasses up on top of his head. I even got a demonstration. After that, I went to a presentation tonight by the photographer Tony Sweet. He shoots mainly with a FF Nikon D3x. I asked him if he had any problems, as he wears glasses and is nearsighted. His response was that when he does…he removes them. I suppose he might have been talking about those odd shots where you are near the ground and get in strange positions…but I don’t think so.

So my not so short response is…sure its me. But it’s not a shooting issue I can resolve by repositioning my body or head. I really don’t want to sell my lenses and I like what Sony is doing but I have to be able to use their fine equipment effectively and comfortably to enjoy it. I know there are many others in my situation and that makes it harder for me to understand why there are no elegant solutions. How hard or expensive would it be to produce a quality eyepiece extension no matter the reason people are having problems? To be honest there are many features on cameras that are solutions to problems hardly anyone has. If I were the cynical type I would say there are many products out there that are solutions to problems NO ONE has.

I’ll be going to PhotoPlus Expo in New York City soon. I’ll ask at the Sony booth and I’m sure I’ll get a lot of blank stares. After 33 years of teaching I’m used to it. I will get to try an a850 without eyecup and we’ll see if it’s tolerable. In the meantime, hope springs eternal.

Bruce

[Dr. Harout]

Hi Bruce and welcome to the forum. Guess the question was so important that we all omitted/forgot welcoming you.
First of all baldness is not an issue, instead it's one routine thing you don't need to do... combing (welcome to the balds' club. After all you cannot have plenty of vegetation on a soil rich of minerals , or you might as well say that if hair was a nice thing it wouldn't just grow anywhere )
Now for the viewfinder issue. It is tougher to look with eyeglasses, naturally but I might suggest something if it's possible at your place. Just take off the rubber eyecup, take it to an optician and let him/her adjust an astigmatic glass in it (with same parameters as your eye, left one in your case. Eyes might differ and I'm sure you know that.)
In a country where you cannot enter a specialized shop and ask for accessories, lenses and so forth just because there doesn't exist such a shop you have to DIY. That's where the brain works. We do it here.
I repeat the main problem would be if the optician would be reluctant to do it, because if he/she fails who's to be blamed? Here the optician who accepts to do it says: I'll try but if this rubber eyecup gets damaged I can't fix it. So our reply would be: just do it, but try not to damage it cause it's hard for me to get another one. It's kind of a gentleman's agreement, "you do it and I won't blame you because you really tried".
Mind you, it's quite probable your eye-start would not work.

[David Kilpatrick]

The Minolta -Sony eyepiece correction lenses clip into the ocular frame, which means they can never be made with astigmatic (cylindrical) correction unlike lenses for the Nikon F5 type circular viewfinder eyepiece, which can be designed to rotate. Looking at Bruce's specs they are pretty much like mine - lightweight flexible minimal frame, smallish 35mm-shaped lenses. Shirley is a left eye shooter and uses completely flexible specs (the sort of metal you can twist or fold and it returns to its shape). We both have lightweight high refractive index lenses.

I remove my specs often enough when shooting indoors, example, in the studio. That's because my vision is comfortable at under 1 metre. Outdoors, when driving, I need my specs so I don't normally remove them. I understand Bruce's issue but not how this appears to be specific to Sony. I don't find the Sony viewfinder any worse than others, and the A900 is maybe one of the easiest finders to get a full view. I do find the rear screen of the A380/350 worse than the Nikon D5000 - there is over 1cm difference in the ocular/screen relationship.

In my case, although I have noticeable astigmatism in my right eye, this only affects my vision when combined with shortsightedness. I do not need 'just cylindrical' correction lenses for working within my short-sight range, and I can survive with a -1.5 to -2 dioptre correction lens using no astigmatic factor. If a Sony -2 correction lens is clipped into the eyepiece, it has the automatic effect of reducing the apparent size of the focus screen. I do not know the formula, maybe Olaf would have an idea how much scale reduction at a theoretical focus point of 1 metre is caused by adding a -2 dioptre. It should be the same, visually, as looking at an object 1 m away without your -2 specs, then dropping your specs into place. You will see an apparent change in scale. That's what would happen with the screen, too, and it would become easier to see the corners accordingly.

But - I have just checked out the only eyepiece correction lens I have around in my junk drawer, an old Zenza Bronica +1.5 dioptre. It is not +1.5 at all, in spectacle terms. It is far more powerful. The lens has an actual focal length of 10cm (+10 dioptres) when checked out by focusing an image from my window. To view through it, it has to be used like a magnifying glass (it's actually a pretty neat ultra-small magnifying lens!). So I have no idea how eyepiece correction lenses are designed. Maybe this Bronica one actually replaces an element in the Bronica finder, instead of being added.

David

[Bruce Oudekerk]

I know that this is not specific to Sony; it's just that it so happens that the a900 and presumably the a850 exceed my ability to see the entire viewfinder image. When I go to PhotoPlus Expo I’ll run around and check out other FF cameras. ie the D3x and 1DsIII just because I’m curious, not because I have intent to buy. I think that the Nikon D700 is the anomaly because of the thin screw-in eyepiece and minimalist eyecup. I’ve got a double whammy here with the viewfinder issue AND the 4 way stalk poking me. THAT’S a Sony issue unfortunately for me. And I know that’s a VERY rare complaint and a result of my straining to see into the viewfinder. The Canon stalk is moved much lower on the back and other models/brands have different and more comfortable rocker mechanisms.

By coincidence I have an old optical prescription pinned to my cork board awaiting filling, which I never did:) My left eye diopter is +3.00 which is stronger than I thought. On my 7D I apparently can adjust for eyeglass-less viewing with the internal diopter adjustment because I can see just OK when the adjustment is maxed. I was hoping that some combination of external diopters would change the eye relief AND minimize the viewfinder image as you were alluding to. You have hypothesized exactly what I hoped for. For instance, I could use a -2 add-on diopter which would more-or-less zero out my glasses and then use the internal diopter to accommodate whatever else I need. Hopefully somewhere in this process I would be able to see the entire viewfinder image. If this works, it would be the best kept secret in all of photography. LOL These diopters are inexpensive enough that I’m willing to order one (a -2.0 I think) from Sonystyle to find out what they do…just because I’m curious. Whether it works or not…thank you.

I really don’t care if any solution occludes eyestart.

As an aside, where is eye-point/eye-relief measured from. It certainly is NOT measured from the portion of the viewfinder closest to the eye. That would be the eye cup and that is just exacerbating the viewing issue with eyeglass wearers by pushing the eye further away from the viewfinder. That’s ironic too, in my mind, as the very item that protects our glasses prevents us from utilizing them! The measurement might be from the glass eyepiece. But at a guess, I'll bet it’s the plane of image focus. That would explain why dSLRs are exhibiting this problem and film cameras aren't with similar specifications. The combination of sensor, anti shake and rear LCD would be much thicker than a film camera, I would think. This is just a supposition on my part. As I stated above, the D700 has a very thin eyecup and a very flat viewfinder optic allowing the operator to get further forward. If I’m guessing correctly, by its very nature a dSLR would have us ‘wasting’ much of the eyepoint ‘depth’ just by the way its measured.

Bruce

[David Kilpatrick]

Eyepoint is measured from the surface of the ocular. But if you compare Nikon to Sony, you will find that Sony has at least 5mm more 'recessing' of the ocular. If you were to measure eyepoint from the rubber surroung, I think Sony would have to remove 1cm from their stated eyepoint relative to a typical Nikon body.

I am just able to compare, for example, my Nikon D5000 and Sony A380. The ocular of the A380 is 15mm forward of the surface of the rear screen and the eyepiece rubber is 2mm forward of the screen. On the D5000, the ocular surface is 5mm forward of the rear screen, and the eyepiece rubber is 3mm to the rear of it. This small design detail, combined with the Nikon's ability to rotate its rear screen into reversed position protecting it from all face contact, is pretty significant in terms of which camera is better to use.

David

[Bruce Oudekerk]

Hope might spring eternal but in this case the spring looks like it has sprung:( This is a follow up to this thread and unfortunately for me, not a successful conclusion.

I ordered a +2.0 diopter from Sonystyle and it was an uneventful and quick transaction. To refresh your memory I intended to use the diopter with my eyeglasses. I had gotten my numbers wrong and I have a -3.0 diopter adjustment in my viewing eye, so it’s a good thing I re-checked before ordering. Since diopters are additive I HOPED that the +2.0 would pretty much set my eyeglass covered eyes back to -1 and that is what happened. I had expected the diopter itself to cover the eyepiece and that the eyecup would slide into the diopter but this tiny unit elegantly snaps inside the eyepiece and thus does not affect the eyecup at all. The diopter design is well thought out, fits well and optically is virtually transparent. What it did not do was to significantly change the size in the viewfinder and allow me to see the entire image better with my glasses on. I tried this on my 7D where I can see the entire image anyway but the principles should be the same…only the scale different.

I did notice that the +2 diopter acted like a very modest magnifier but the diopter has to be pulled further away from the eyepiece or the object one is viewing. I assumed that a negative diopter would do the same but make an image appear smaller as it is pulled away. I then hypothesized that if a negative diopter were placed in front of the eyepiece…say 6 to 7 mm in front of where it should be snapped in…that it would reduce the image size in the viewfinder. I then realized I had all sorts of -3 diopters in the form of old eyeglasses. But that didn’t lead to any positive conclusion either.

FWIW there was NO barrel or pincushion distortion that I could perceive in this inexpensive diopter that I purchased. That makes the Canon eye extension distortion that much more puzzling to me.

I still have some hopes. My eye doctor is a very curious guy…I’m hoping to entice him into this issue:) PhotoPlus Expo is my next stop however.

Bruce

[Bruce Oudekerk]

This really shouldn’t have been entitled ‘Problems with a850/a900 viewfinder’, as when I had the opportunity to use the a850 this week, there were no problems with it.

I still am not able to rationalize the small difference between the 100% a900 viewfinder vs. the nearly identical speced 98% of the a850 and what I see through these viewfinders. The a850 views very similarly to the Nikon D700 and, for that matter, my old Canon A1 35mm film camera but very differently form the a900 to my bespectacled eyes.

The bottom line is that I will be buying the a850 and I’m a happy camper.

In a related incident, I was riding back from the PhotoPlus Expo in NY City with friends and one of them had recently found a Christmas gift misplaced from 2008 and gave it to the intended recipient, also in the car. It was a magnifier eyepiece for the non-round eyepiece Nikons. Of course I pipe up and wax philosophic about my viewfinder issues and how no one at the PhotoPlus Expo had any idea what I was talking about, much less a solution. Yada, Yada, Yada I also explained how one of my ‘experiments’ way down my list of possible solutions would be to take a magnifier and flip it over and make a…’diminisher’ ??? i.e. a pseudo eyepiece extension and see if that would actually reduce an image in the viewfinder. I’ll be damned if it doesn’t work, at least to some extent. To really test it out I need to unscrew the back of the eyepiece and actually flip the element rather than just hold it up backwards (which I am unwilling to do with someone else’s property). Strangely the Nikon eyepiece fits well on my KM 7D and when inverted seems to maintain the geometry of the image without distortion. And its only $25. If it does work and since magnifiers are prevalent; inexpensive solutions for us severely myopic photographers are readily available with just a little kludging. But to be honest, I doubt I will use it on the a850 unless I need to get my face further from the back of the camera.

Bruce