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I was very sorry to see that the recent Canon 7D did not come with a tilting LCD screen. I have no ambition to shoot movies but Michael Reichmann mentions on Luminous Landscape that a tilting LCD is really essential for shooting video - after all the viewfinder is blacked out.
For myself, I'd find it great for low and high shots and some of those awkward positions we sometimes find ourselves in, camera jambed between a rock and a hard place, and no room for my eye behind the viewfinder - ok, it's an industrial thing - between a pipe and a ledge, right?
Anyway, I'm curious about how other people feel about a tilting LCD screen - let me know what you think - and just to guage interest level - how many of you would be willing to pay an extra $100 for a model that did have a good tilting swinging screen?
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11 comments:
A tilting LCD not only makes some conventional shots easier to capture...it additionally makes impossible shots possible.
A tilting LCD can change the way that you see and photograph the world. Very valuable in my opinion.
Before moving to the DSLR world, I spent quite some time using a Canon G5 which had a small-ish but quite useful articulated LCD. To this day I still miss it on occasion. Personally, since I'm still using a pre-video DSLR, I find live-view on a fixed screen to be mostly useless. I'd gladly pay $100 for even one with the limited capabilities of the G5. As Jim said, it makes impossible shots possible.
Simply said, I won't even consider a camera without a fully articulating screen anymore -- not since my Sony R1 spoiled me on this incredibly useful feature. All other features are secondary. Okay, that might be a bit extreme, but my days of yogic self-articulation in order to compose on a non-movable screen (like in my old view camera days) are long behind me. Just my two cents.
Brooks Jensen
I have a tilting AND swiveling (imporant when the camera is vertical) LCD on my Panasonic G1, and I find it immensely useful for portraits (people are much less self-conscious if you are not staring at them) and closeups, and for fine-tuning a composition. For landscapes, of course, the resolution of the G1's m43 sensor is no match for my Canon 5D2. But I do wish that it also had that swiveling LCD.
I'm going from a G10 to G11 primarily due to the articulated screen - not for video but for macro shots. Given the price differential between the G10 and G11, I'm not sure it should cost $100, and I'm not sure I'd want it on the 1Ds3 I shoot with as my main body.
I started my (now total) immersion in digital photography with Nikon's old Coolpix 950 (remember that one?). Not an SLR, not even an articulating LCD, but an articulating camera body part with an LCD on it ;-) Anyway, I miss having that ability badly now...and would welcome it on an SLR.
The tilting LCD on my Olympus C-8080 meant that I could use it as a kind of twin-lens reflex for viewing purposes. A little essay here.
I'll go one better. How hard would it be to have a seperate LCD maybe 4inch that plugs into a jack on the side of the camera?
I'll go one better. How hard would it be to have a seperate LCD maybe 4inch that plugs into a jack on the side of the camera?
Nikon D90/D300s, Mini HDMI to HDMI cable and an LCD TV screen and Bob's your uncle. ;)
Joking aside, I can see a few situations where that might come in handy in the field.
Does anyone know of a decent small battery operated lcd screen - any I found were security camera types of very low resolution.
George
I think you're going to struggle to find anything above VGA resolution for now (same as the internal 5D Mk II screen, then). And going up in size while staying at VGA resolution will only cause the dreaded digital cheap photo-frame effect.
The only half-decent option I can think of would be to carry a small netbook on the field, like a 9" or 10", and use something like Camera Control Pro for Nikon or the Canon equivalent. Then you have a bigger screen, 1024x600 res., and complete remote control over all the camera functions. Size and battery consumption would be an issue, though (my D90 eats through batteries when connected via USB).
And to think your other post was something about reducing kit size and weight...
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