Youtuber JCristina doesn't understand the concept of OVF and EVF

July 18, 2020


JCristina (aka Joseph Cristina) is a small and not very known Youtuber that I stumbled upon recently. I watched one of his latest videos talking about the upcoming rumored Nikon Z5. I had to chuckle when I saw how he explained the OVF and EVF. At 5:32 he says: 
Remember, the EVF is our augmented reality. In the past we had our OVF, when you look through the camera you see out of the lens and what you see is not what you get, right? You had to actually set things before you got them right after the fact when you looked at the back, when you chimped at the back of the camera, right? Now the EVF is your augmented reality, virtual reality, however you set the camera up, when you look through the EVF, that's exactly what you gonna get when you pull the trigger. [...] What you see is what you get.
Here is the video that he made:


First of all, he doesn't even understand the concept of augmented reality (or AR), a term he loves to throw around several times. This is the definition of AR: a technology that superimposes a computer-generated image on a user's view of the real world, thus providing a composite view. The closest we came to AR in EVFs is Fuji's hybrid EVF in cameras like the Fuji X100 Series (a camera I owned), but even that wasn't pure AR, it just used a bit of the concept. Moving on, the OVF as well as the EVF are not actual representations of what you will get in the finished RAW file. Each of them have their strengths and weaknesses, but you can't say EVFs will give you exactly what you see when you pull the trigger.

Why EVFs are not accurate either

The basic distinction between the OVF and the EVF is that the OVF shows you what the lens sees, the EVF shows you what the sensor sees. But both of them are not actual representations of what you'll get at the end when you press the shutter button. Both are merely approximations. Most EVFs do not have the exact same resolution as the final image, nor do they have the color accuracy and other attributes that the sensor produces. This is the first issue. The second issue is EVF lag. You'll never be able to click the exact moment you see in the EVF, because the reality happened a few milliseconds before you click. Now EVFs have gotten better over time, but this is one of the main reasons why they are not popular with action and wildlife photographers, because these are environments where every split second matters. Nothing can beat the OVF here that has no lag at all. The third issue is even most consumer monitors don't actually represent the full RAW image well, especially when it comes to cameras with higher resolutions, like your Nikon Z7s and Sony A7R IVs. And full resolution is just one big problem, accurate colors is another. I really wish these photography Youtubers would put a bit more thought into these things, especially those who try to become big and have sponsors.

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