I’ve been using the electronic finder for the Sony RX-1 for several weeks now. I would have reported on my experience earlier had it not been for all the preparations for the In Motion exhibition. Now that the exhibition is open, I have a bit more time.
The finder is not small, but not huge, either. It fits securely on the camera in spite of the lack of an explicit locking lever like that on the thumb grip. As has been widely reported elsewhere, you can’t use the thumb grip and the electronic viewfinder at the same time; if you slide the viewfinder on to the thumb grip accessory shoe, it can’t reach the electrical contacts on the camera body.
The finder ships with two eye cups, one of which is suitable for glasses-wearers like me. It’s bright – brighter than the NEX-7 built-in EVF – and easy to see in all lighting conditions that I’ve experienced. When you turn the camera on, the EVF doesn’t spring to life as quite fast as the LCD on the back of the camera, so you can’t rotate the on/off switch and immediately bring the camera to your eye unless you want to look at blackness for a second or two.
As with the NEX-7, the EVF display is not exactly the same as the LCD on the back of the camera in the various display modes. There’s sometimes less information in the EVF, which is good in most circumstances. The only thing that I’d like to see added to the EVF is the flash ready light; I’m not sure why it’s only available on the LCD, since it doesn’t take up much screen real estate.
The finder can be rotated through ninety degrees, so you can look straight forward, straight down, or anything in between. That’s very handy, especially considering that the main LCD display is not articulated.
All in all, I like the finder a lot, and consider it an essential accessory. I which it had been incorporated into the camera body instead of the pop-up flash.
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