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  • neon_diogenes · 4 days ago

    When I use a camera with an optical viewfinder, I feel more connected to my subject. Sure all the modern pro cameras are using EVFs now, and their performance is excellent, but I do think it’s a more disconnected shooting experience.

    Think about the optical chain.

    EVF: Subject —-> real time digital processor —-> screen —-> shooters eye

    OVF: subject —-> mirror/glass —-> shooters eye

    My hipster take is that makes shooting with an OVF a more “pure” experience. Not that it matters from the subjects POV though..

    Seems like a cool camera. I think I will pick one up for my daughter.

    • unsupp0rted · 22 hours ago

      "shooters eye" is doing a lot of work there, since that's where the most pre-processing happens, by far

      • Groxx · 19 hours ago

        The largest source of delay too

      • tencentshill · 23 hours ago

        This is probably an LCD panel with the polarizer removed, so the UI will require a bright/strong source of light behind it.

        • mikestew · 23 hours ago

          Going on ten years ago I saw an early transparent OLED screen (TV-sized). It didn’t need a strong light source behind it. Could be those got cheap enough in a small size to put in a $29 camera.

          • Groxx · 19 hours ago

            Without the polarizer, you wouldn't be able to see anything. Unless wearing polarizing sunglasses.

            But yea, you'd need light on the subject you're looking at it through to take pictures too.

          • zerobees · 23 hours ago

            I don't understand how this works. If it's a transparent display that just passes through light and adds some overlay information (like a viewfinder on d/SLR cameras of the old), then doesn't the frame change completely depending on the distance you're holding the device at in relation to your face?

            It can't be meant to be used with your arm fully outstretched, because that would be an impractically narrow field of view. So how do you "calibrate" your stance to make the capture match the FOV of the glass rectangle you're looking through?

            • stavros · 23 hours ago

              Not only that, but slight changes to the angle you're holding it will result in dramatically different photo angles, even though you're always seeing the same thing.

              • mikestew · 23 hours ago

                I think the idea is that the display kinda represents the shot, but not well, but if you cared you wouldn’t be shooting with a $29 camera. I mean, it takes 1920x1080 pics, don’t get too picky there, Ansley Adams. :-)

                But I agree with you, I don’t see how the “viewfinder” is all that useful, other than “nifty!”.

                • circuit10 · 23 hours ago

                  But if it’s giving you no information about what will actually be in frame you might as well just look in front of you and guess

                  • daniel_reetz · 21 hours ago

                    Or develop thesense & skill of using it. It clearly has a fixed FOV that's being cropped based on what's on the display.

                    Humans can learn this stuff, cameras with crude viewfinders have appeared in the past.

                    • circuit10 · 21 hours ago

                      Could you not develop the same sense by just looking in front of you without the viewfinder? I don’t see how a frame that doesn’t actually have any relation to what the camera is capturing helps you at all

                      • hug · 20 hours ago

                        The frame is a compositional aid, and it does have quite a strict relation to what the camera is capturing.

                        The best version of your complaint is that the viewfinder does not have accurate frame lines that account for parallax at various distances, which is true, but there are still ways of using the viewfinder to assist in composition.

                        If you take two or three shots at two meters, and look at what the camera captured versus where your composition was in the frame, you can immediately intuit a baseline for where the frame lines 'should be' on the viewfinder at two meters. "Occupies the bottom right two thirds of the viewfinder" for example.

                        Without a reference frame, these intuitions (and your aiming of the camera!) are going to be far less accurate.

                        • jjk166 · 20 hours ago

                          Seems a lot easier to learn "it's accurate when it's about 8 inches from my face; it's this much off when it is 12 inches away" than to project out a virtual FOV from the camera at an arbitrary position onto the world.

                      • ShinyLeftPad · 11 hours ago

                        Most people (even pros) even with expensive cameras and great viewfinders still take mostly garbage shots and only some are good by luck. Same will be true here

                        Often switching from using your eye to looking through the viewfinder and fiddle with composition is how you ruin a genuine shot and miss the moment.

                        Also I used a camera without a viewfinder for some years, I guarantee if it's a fixed lens you learn what you get quickly.

                      • benj111 · 22 hours ago

                        Is Ansley Adams this generations David Bailey?

                        • anukin · 22 hours ago

                          I think OP meant ansel adams. The guy died even before most of the crowd in HN was born.

                          • mikestew · 6 hours ago

                            I blame autocorrect, though it could have just been my fat fingers. Sibling has it right: “Ansel Adams”.

                            (“Ansely Adam’s”, WTF, autocorrect?)

                            • sandspar · 2 hours ago

                              Let me guess, you have an iPhone?

                          • Groxx · 19 hours ago

                            tbh I would probably enjoy a dirt-cheap viewfinder-and-display-less camera, like an even-cheaper charmera. it'd also make a great party-favor thing: hand them out before an event, and optionally gather photos from people at the end.

                          • zamadatix · 23 hours ago

                            For a near flat $29 MSRP camera I'm not sure I could come up with better way to have an overlaid viewfinder. The screen itself even looks to be a cheap segmented display, not a grid of pixels.

                            If you care those things mess up your framing of the shot then you probably don't want a flat $29 camera.

                            • thot_experiment · 22 hours ago

                              It's $29, this is a fun gimmick to take pictures of your friends doing bullshit this summer. It's obviously far worse than your phone, the point is that it's fun.

                              • nickcw · 22 hours ago

                                Maybe it does measure the distance to your face to work out where to show the viewfinder rectangle...

                                • tantalor · 21 hours ago

                                  It likely comes with instructions like "hold directly in front of you, at exactly 15cm distance, with your left eye closed".

                                  • cge · 21 hours ago

                                    A perhaps similar sort of finder existed on a number of older (eg, first half of the 20th century) cameras, usually as a secondary option or an accessory, for quick shots. They tend to be common additions built into waist level finders because WLFs are slow to use and adding them is cheap; there’s one on the 1939 Praktiflex, as a random example, an early 35mm SLR with a pretty tiny WLF as its primary viewfinder.

                                    Those usually work by having two square windows, the back larger than the front: you know you are looking at them the right way when they line up. They’re very approximate, but they’re meant to be.

                                    Here, the camera has a thickness that is obscured by the face-on photos of it, so I expect it works by a similar principle: if you see the sides of the inside of the screen, you’re misaligned.

                                  • K0balt · 20 hours ago

                                    I don’t know but it’s either completely vibes driven or, maybe, it uses a TOF sensor to know how far from your face it is . It has framing cues that seem to adjust, so it’s plausible that it gives you an approximate framing based on the distance from your face. Even multizone TOF sensors are less than $2 these days, so it’s at least plausible.

                                    • onemoresoop · 19 hours ago

                                      That’d be cool if it does that but for this price I doubt it has it even if TOF sensor is cheap.

                                      • dTal · 11 hours ago

                                        if you have a 2 dollar budget to make a viewfinder work, just throw in a ten cent plastic lens and be done with it.

                                      • LocalH · 20 hours ago

                                        I imagine the same way cheap point-and-shoot film cameras did.

                                        • Groxx · 20 hours ago

                                          Those had a viewfinder that restricted your viewing angles and location to enough of a degree that it mostly didn't matter.

                                          • onemoresoop · 19 hours ago

                                            Cheap point and shoot have a prism that if you could take further from the eye would retain the aspect ration. If this camera has a glass that is used to frame the photo it would change the frame based on how close you keep it to your eyes

                                        • ortusdux · 23 hours ago

                                          I wonder if you could sandwich two polarized lenses in a way that would make it only transparent when your eye is in the correct position. Would make for an elegant & simple WYSIWYG viewfinder.

                                          • russdill · 21 hours ago

                                            I would argue for some form of head tracking to always display the appropriate frame.

                                            It would be nice if you could use hud display tech so it would automatically track, but I don't think it's possible in this form factor

                                            • efskap · 19 hours ago

                                              Maybe even an off-the-shelf microlouver privacy screen protector?

                                            • henvic · 22 hours ago

                                              > Thanks to its very affordable price, the camera is also an attractive option as a light meter.

                                              Tell me you're writing AI slop without telling me you're writing AI slop.

                                              Why is this news outlet with some low-quality post even on Hacker News?

                                              Product site: https://www.godox.com/product-e/C100.html

                                              • ThrowawayTestr · 22 hours ago

                                                Why does that sentence strike you? This product seems to be a light meter with a camera attached.

                                                • henvic · 21 hours ago

                                                  Sure, but that is despite of / or not because it's very affordable. Not thanks to it. Or am I being too picky?

                                                  • verall · 21 hours ago

                                                    If it was not very affordable, it would not be interesting as a light meter, because it would make no sense to spend any more money on a very basic light meter. Light meters on amazon start at about $15-30 (and go to ~$700), so at it's current price point, it's not much more expensive then a basic light meter without the camera.

                                                    • bestham · 15 hours ago

                                                      I believe that Notebookcheck is natively written in German and translated.

                                                • codazoda · 21 hours ago

                                                  I had the most fun taking pictures with a cheap, low-quality camera that I only owned for a few months before it died. This one might fit the bill nicely. The skill or unknowns of the viewfinder might be part of the charm.

                                                  I want one, but they don’t seem to be available yet.

                                                  • TonyZYT2000 · 21 hours ago

                                                    This also functions as a light meter for analog photographing. There are light meter apps on smart phones, but it is fun to measure through a lighter/simpler equipment.

                                                    • Finnucane · 20 hours ago

                                                      Or even just using a plain old light meter. I use a Gossen Luna Pro (with 'spot' attachment) with my meterless cameras (which is most of them). It's reliable.

                                                    • zoom6628 · 20 hours ago

                                                      Great for kids to get started. Saves to SD so you don't fill your mobile storage with 12,000 beach photos from last holiday. Cheaper to lose/replace than ifone.

                                                      I still have a LUMIX camera 10+ years for instant pics when travelling. Smaller than my wallet.

                                                      • fc417fc802 · 19 hours ago

                                                        > Godox has apparently omitted Wi-Fi and Bluetooth for cost reasons.

                                                        Seem like a questionable claim given that many microcontrollers support both of those.

                                                        • jerlam · 15 hours ago

                                                          It's not just the cost of the antennas. This device barely has a screen and has like four buttons total. How are you going to type in a wifi password?

                                                          • fc417fc802 · 10 hours ago

                                                            Put it in the file wpa_supplicant.conf on the root of the sd card of course.

                                                            Point taken, although I suspect the sibling comment about the cost of certification might be the correct answer.

                                                          • dingaling · 15 hours ago

                                                            More likely omitted for cost associated with regulatory reasons, so they don't have to submit it for emitter approval.

                                                          • vivzkestrel · 15 hours ago

                                                            when are we going to get a fully transparent phone

                                                            • perilunar · 4 hours ago

                                                              It seems that you hold the camera vertically to take a landscape photo, and horizontally to take a portrait photo. That’s going to confuse people.