Nikon Z Viewfinder Question

[Minuteman3]

I'm really not much interested in mirrorless, old timer that I am, but on a recent trip to Best Buy I stopped by the camera counter and was just looking at the Canon version (EOS R) for a minute or two (while trying to avoid a sales guy)!!

The image shown on the back LCD was comparable to what I see/use with my 6D Mk II. But, when I looked through the eyepiece as I "normally" would, the image was terrible. Colors didn't look quite right, the brightness was too high, etc. Now it's more than possible that someone had messed up the settings, but it peaked my curiosity about the electronic viewfinders in general.

How is the Z's viewfinder compare to, say, a D850 in terms of clarity/color, etc.?

Thanks in advance...

Ken

 

[Terri French]

From the reviews I have read the Z's have about the best electronic viewfinder out there. If the brightness was too high on the one you viewed, it could have been the camera settings. They show what the photo would look like if you took it then. So the exposure on the camera was probably off. That is one of the beauties of an electronic viewfinder. It helps you avoid exposure errors.

 

[Cslucas34]

Ken,

There is an obvious difference as the Z is a video feed compared to an 850 being mirror fed of real life. That being said, after my initial adjustment (about a day shooting) from the 850 I came to appreciate the EVF more than what I had on the 850. You can set it up like Terri said to show what the image would look like with current settings or you can have it default to “normal” regardless of settings. You can adjust color temp and all that to accurately reflect real world. I don’t notice any difference now on my Z7 and I have the added benefit of exposure meter / histogram right there in my eye piece as i shoot. Short version of this is, after the initial adjustment of change I have come to love it more than true live view.

 

[Minuteman3]

From the reviews I have read the Z's have about the best electronic viewfinder out there. If the brightness was too high on the one you viewed, it could have been the camera settings. They show what the photo would look like if you took it then. So the exposure on the camera was probably off. That is one of the beauties of an electronic viewfinder. It helps you avoid exposure errors.

Thanks, Terri. I can see how that would be helpful in some situations.

Ken,

There is an obvious difference as the Z is a video feed compared to an 850 being mirror fed of real life. That being said, after my initial adjustment (about a day shooting) from the 850 I came to appreciate the EVF more than what I had on the 850. You can set it up like Terri said to show what the image would look like with current settings or you can have it default to “normal” regardless of settings. You can adjust color temp and all that to accurately reflect real world. I don’t notice any difference now on my Z7 and I have the added benefit of exposure meter / histogram right there in my eye piece as i shoot. Short version of this is, after the initial adjustment of change I have come to love it more than true live view.

Thanks so much. I pretty much guessed that the quick look I had was not very representative as it was clearly mal-adjusted. But it's good to hear that eventually it loos pretty lifelike.

Appreciate the info!!

Ken

 

[pcassity]

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I have the 850 and Z7. The EVF is just incredible! I was a bit skeptical at first but not anymore. Being able to see what an image is going to look like while composing the image takes photography to a different level, in my opinion. I got this shot of Jupiter last night. With the 850, I would have had to pre-focus during the daylight on an object at infinity and then tape thefocus ring of the lens so that it didn't move for a shot later that evening. With the Z7, I was able to capture Jupiter on the monitor and then focus!View attachment 1640726

 

[vinman]

I agree with the other assessments. The wysiwyg view is really pretty astonishing. I haven’t looked at the Canon offering (why would I ), but the Nikon EVF is quite impressive. I took a few years off Nikon to try out Fuji. Decent stuff. The Nikon EVF is the superlative, in my opinion. All my Fuji stuff is gone, and I learned an expensive lesson.

 

[gryphon1911]

I'm really not much interested in mirrorless, old timer that I am, but on a recent trip to Best Buy I stopped by the camera counter and was just looking at the Canon version (EOS R) for a minute or two (while trying to avoid a sales guy)!!

The image shown on the back LCD was comparable to what I see/use with my 6D Mk II. But, when I looked through the eyepiece as I "normally" would, the image was terrible. Colors didn't look quite right, the brightness was too high, etc. Now it's more than possible that someone had messed up the settings, but it peaked my curiosity about the electronic viewfinders in general.

How is the Z's viewfinder compare to, say, a D850 in terms of clarity/color, etc.?

Thanks in advance...

Ken

It's really hard to compare an EVF versus on OVF as they really are very different.

I will say this, though...that I have used just about every single camera out there in the market and the Nikon EVF in the Z cameras is some of the best out there. Price not withstanding, too!

 

[JeeperDon]

It's really hard to compare an EVF versus on OVF as they really are very different.

This reminds me of the old days when vinyl'ists were saying the the new digital music CDs were awful.

 

[Pa]

This reminds me of the old days when vinyl'ists were saying the the new digital music CDs were awful.

Is there supposed to be a photograph here? If so I don't see it.

 

[FredAzinger]

This reminds me of the old days when vinyl'ists were saying the the new digital music CDs were awful.

Time has not fixed this abomination of sound.
Failed format - the engineers didn't understand what they were doing and locked us in to junk.
Very unfortunate.

 

[FredAzinger]

FLAC does not fix bad sampling to begin with - just prevents further loss.
Garbage in-garbage out