What's a viewfinder aimed at?

[lct]

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What's a viewfinder aimed at?
(a) Showing the reality as it is, or
(b) Showing the reality as it is seen by the camera?
Question not asked to Peter Karbe during the interview quoted below.
Source: https://youtu.be/pAq-owv-ScY

Quote

It's always a challenge to use an M at the beginning because you look through the rangefinder, and you can see the frame and sometimes when you have a longer focal length you see more than you take with the lens. On the other side, you can't see how it looks like in terms of focus and defocus, the unsharpness, the background how it will look like. This image, you have to create it in your brain and you will see the result later but when you take the picture, you will not see it. You have to imagine how will the picture look like by choosing the aperture, and focusing and all these things, and this is a big challenge. Today you have digital cameras and so you can directly look the result. In former times, this was more challenging because you had first to take the picture and to develop and then the time frame in between was much more longer. On the other side, once you have learnt it, you will never want to do something different because this training to have the image in your brain helps you to create the images, and you can do it with the M camera.

 

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[earleygallery]

Yes with an SLR you would see the DOF at the widest aperture and (if it had the function) could stop down to your taking aperture to preview the DOF albeit with a darker/much darker view. 

With the direct optical finder you have a view as you see it with your eye and have to imagine how the image will look at the taking aperture whatever that is at the time. 

It's a matter of experience IMHO. Once you've tried your lens/es at various apertures and distances you just know what you will get. Much the same as shooting B&W film, once you have the experience you can visualise in B&W and also the effect of filters if using them. 

EVF's of course allow you to see pretty much what you get. 

Sorry, what was the question? 

I have wondered for a while now if younger people suffer from a lack of imagination. Short attention spans, watching tik tok videos and never reading a novel. They need to have everything presented to them as a final product. Photographers who have only ever used an EVF camera will also suffer. 

Edited September 17 by earleygallery

[250swb]

10 hours ago, lct said:

What's a viewfinder aimed at?
(a) Showing the reality as it is, or
(b) Showing the reality as it is seen by the camera?
Question not asked to Peter Karbe during the interview quoted below.
Source: https://youtu.be/pAq-owv-ScY

 

Neither, the reality is your brain has decided to focus in on a small part of a much larger world by aiming a camera at it. At that point there is no 'reality as it is' (as another person may see it), or an alternative reality created by the camera. It's the same reality as looking more closely at something to understand it better for which a camera isn't needed, but the camera allows you to record what you've understood.

Edited September 18 by 250swb

[lct]

12 hours ago, earleygallery said:

Yes with an SLR you would see the DOF at the widest aperture and (if it had the function) could stop down to your taking aperture to preview the DOF albeit with a darker/much darker view. 

With the direct optical finder you have a view as you see it with your eye and have to imagine how the image will look at the taking aperture whatever that is at the time. 

It's a matter of experience IMHO. Once you've tried your lens/es at various apertures and distances you just know what you will get. Much the same as shooting B&W film, once you have the experience you can visualise in B&W and also the effect of filters if using them. 

EVF's of course allow you to see pretty much what you get. 

Sorry, what was the question? [...]

Well said and what is the question indeed?
The question is what is the aim of the viewfinder.
• If the VF is aimed at showing the reality as it is, the better viewfinder is an OVF and especially an 1:1 OVF like that of the Bessa or the Epson R-D1. With such an OVF, one can view the reality both eyes open, if needed, and thanks to the 1:1 magnification, the rangefinder associated to the VF can be accurate if its physical length is not too short. As for the drawbacks, it is that of all 1:1 OVFs, one must use goggles with wide angle lenses, but also it is that of all OVFs in general, one cannot have the WYSIWYG experience with OVFs. It is not a drawback for Mr Karbe in the interview quoted above, in that such OVs force the photographer to use his/her imagination to take photographs, to use his/her brain as Dr Karbe said. And the use of the brain in such a process is supposed to improve one's photography.
• On the other side, if the VF is aimed at showing the reality as it is seen by the camera, it cannot be an OVF of whatever magnification since none of them is capable to show the image as it is taken by the camera. Setting aside hybrid VFs for the sake of the discussion, the VF can only be an EVF then, since it is the only one that can provide the WYSIWYG experience referred to above. The advantage, which is a drawback for the Real Leica Man, is that the photographer does not need to imagine how the photo will look like, or at least he/she can do it with less imagination. It is more the eye than the brain, so to speak, that is in use in the process. Does this mean that the photo will be better or worse this way? It is all the question.

Edited September 18 by lct

[LocalHero1953]

By the time you've got your head around this, the decisive moment will have run off and be making faces at you from a great distance.

Where do SLRs and ground glass screens come into this? Or pop-up wire frames?

Edited September 18 by LocalHero1953

[Stuart Richardson]

I think the viewfinder is a technical mechanism driven largely by technical considerations. It is a device that is aimed at allowing focus and framing the resulting image, and in more modern cameras, choosing the technical parameters required for exposure. As such, I think the philosophical aspects, while very very important in the photographic process, are secondary to the function of the viewfinder. Certain users will find different preferences for which viewfinder to use, but the viewfinder is more about achieving a technical goal than an artistic one. It is certainly true, however, that the type and character of the viewfinder will tend to encourage or preclude certain kinds of photography with a particular camera, based on its technical characteristics. For example, making it hard to shoot long telephotos on M cameras. 

OVF Rangefinder cameras do allow you to see the world without too many influences from the lenses' wide open characteristics. So for people who are trying to focus on pictures with an eye to portraying the world as it is seen in their vision (often journalism, street photography, all kinds of "straight" photography), they can be a convenient tool as they allow focus and rough framing without letting wide open DOF get in the way, and they also allow a little extra context around the scene to aid in framing and timing. For more technical and art photography or long telephotos etc, it can be useful to have a what you see is what you get viewfinder. Neither is more valid, they just have different goals. 

Edited September 18 by Stuart Richardson

[masjah]

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1 hour ago, Stuart Richardson said:

I think the viewfinder is a technical mechanism driven largely by technical considerations. It is a device that is aimed at allowing focus and framing the resulting image, and in more modern cameras, choosing the technical parameters required for exposure. As such, I think the philosophical aspects, while very very important in the photographic process, are secondary to the function of the viewfinder. Certain users will find different preferences for which viewfinder to use, but the viewfinder is more about achieving a technical goal than an artistic one. It is certainly true, however, that the type and character of the viewfinder will tend to encourage or preclude certain kinds of photography with a particular camera, based on its technical characteristics. For example, making it hard to shoot long telephotos on M cameras. 

OVF Rangefinder cameras do allow you to see the world without too many influences from the lenses' wide open characteristics. So for people who are trying to focus on pictures with an eye to portraying the world as it is seen in their vision (often journalism, street photography, all kinds of "straight" photography), they can be a convenient tool as they allow focus and rough framing without letting wide open DOF get in the way, and they also allow a little extra context around the scene to aid in framing and timing. For more technical and art photography or long telephotos etc, it can be useful to have a what you see is what you get viewfinder. Neither is more valid, they just have different goals. 

Stuart, I very much agree with this, especially the last sentence. For example, my own photographic interest (Architecture) is such that the subject doesn't actually move very much, nor steps into a pudde, or whatever, and the decisive moment can last for centuries, so a WYSIWYG type of viewfinder camera best meets my needs.

 

[Luke_Miller]

I my case the viewfinder is used to frame the image I saw before I raised the camera to my eye.

[pop]

17 hours ago, lct said:

What's a viewfinder aimed at?
(a) Showing the reality as it is, or
(b) Showing the reality as it is seen by the camera?

I think the question hard to understand. The candidate answers suggest that the question might rather read 'what is the aim - i.e. the purpose - of  a viewfinder.

In any event, showing any kind of reality does not appear to be the main point of any viewfinder. If you want to see 'realitiy', you don't need a 'finder'. Just look around you.

To the best of my knowledge, the viewfinder serves to align the axis of the lens which will take a picture with the direction of the photographer's gaze. Some viewfinders are quite good at it, some rather not.

[BernardC]

18 hours ago, earleygallery said:

I have wondered for a while now if younger people suffer from a lack of imagination. Short attention spans, watching tik tok videos and never reading a novel. They need to have everything presented to them as a final product. Photographers who have only ever used an EVF camera will also suffer. 

I've met many talented and attentive young photographers recently. If anything, I think that the current crop of young photographers (let's say ages 16-30) is much more visually literate than previous generations. They grew-up with cameras in their hands, and many have already invested 10,000 hours in their craft by the time they graduate from high school.

The argument that "the youth of today" are all slackers is as old as photography, and much older for other disciplines. Can you really call yourself a photographers if you haven't boiled mercury to make you own plates? Case in point: alternative processes that involve coating your own emulsion are much more popular now than they were when I was of similar age in the 1990s. Rangefinders are also more popular now than they have been since the 1960s.

[Bliz]

On 9/17/2025 at 10:53 PM, earleygallery said:

I have wondered for a while now if younger people suffer from a lack of imagination.

The younger generations being worse, such a fresh argument.

[pop]

On 9/17/2025 at 10:53 PM, earleygallery said:

have wondered for a while now if younger people suffer from a lack of imagination.

Would that concern also apply to photographers focusing and framing on a ground glass under a black cloth? Do they lack imagination?