Monday, September 5, 2011

On Live View

One thing I learned from D5100 is how useful the live view feature is. Now I lament D3X's live view support is not "as good" as D5100. You can pretty much see everything (exposure, WB, composition, focus) from the D5100 live view. There is no surprise (exact the shutter lag) between what you see and what's in the photo. It takes away a lot of "guess work". Finally, we can take photos with the eyes (camera) opened.

Funny this feature is actually "borrowed" from the compact digital camera (since it doesn't have a reflective mirror so has to rely on live view). Photographers of DSLRs probably laugh at it at first. Now we know how useful it is. (On the other hand, the feature wouldn't be useful until modern DSLR got its powerful LCD screen.)  It reminds me what Henry Ford said: if I ask the customers what they want, they will ask for faster horses.

Which makes me wonder, we can be very wrong at predicting the future. There are many "bad ideas" which can turn into "great ideas" once the road blocks (LCD screen which you cannot see under sun light, which renders the live view useless) are removed.  To be able to distinguish a good idea from the road block it's currently facing is a true test for the visionary.

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