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EVF coming for E-P1 !!!

Mike Hatam

Senior Subscriber Member
Exciting news... and very welcome. I'm glad that Olympus is doing this, as it will resolve the single biggest issue I have with the camera (lack of EVF).

http://43rumors.com/attachable-olympus-evf/

It's not "officially announced" yet by Olympus, but has been confirmed by enough knowledgeable sources to be considered a reality.

Mike
 

tom in mpls

Active member
Can there be any way to communicate with the camera other than the hot shoe contacts? That would make sense to me since I believe hot shoes will inform a flash of the lens' focal length. Still, how would it be powered? A button battery?
 

barjohn

New member
I know this appears to be a viable rumor and I really hope it is true, but I don't see any way for the electronic signals such a VF would require to get to the unit unless it has a cable that plugs into the USB port or the mini HDMI port. Neither sound like a good solution to me. Perhaps it will only be avaialable to an E-P2?
 

kai.e.g.

Member
If true, the only video signal available would be that from the HDMI port.... unless Olympus have been outputting a composite video signal out one of the hotshoe pins without anyone knowing about it (but I seriously doubt that, and would question its usefulness in any case). So, if this rumour is true, this probably means a cable arrangement down to that port, right? Pin #18 of the HDMI socket pinout supplies +5V, up to 50mA, so power is there, too.
 

nostatic

New member
Signal is signal. You have metal contacts on the hot shoe so why not run a digital signal up there? With an EFV it's all just 0s and 1s...
 

cjlacz

Member
I don't believe it. I think someone is just playing with the rumor site. Besides, Oly has already said they are working on a camera with an integrated EVF.
 

tom in mpls

Active member
A cable running to the HDMI port would be a bad idea, practically and certainly esthetically. I am not familiar with rangefinder cameras, but instead of an EVF could it be a rangefinder type optical viewfinder? Does such a viewfinder change it's view as the focal length of the lens changes? Please educate me.
 

kai.e.g.

Member
I'm not confident that serially-transmitted signals through a single hotshoe pin would allow for a suitable user experience to make it worthwhile, unless they intend for this to be a mere gimmick. It's either HDMI, possibly USB... or nothing. I believe it would be totally do-able, but not through the existing hotshoe.
 

tom in mpls

Active member
This has to be a late April fool's joke. No way would Oly create a design that forced the HDMI/AV port cover to sit in the open position with a cable running around to a viewfinder.
 
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beamon

New member
Wouldn't good marketing have dictated that when they rolled out the E-P1, the mention would have been made that an EVF was imminent in a few months? It would have boosted initial sales and you know that it had to have been in the pipeline at roll out.

I'm doubting it!
 

monza

Active member
Why would they offer an optical finder if one of these was going to be released a couple of months after the camera was released?
 
V

Vivek

Guest
Exactly! And going by the price of the dumb optical finder for a single lens ($100/-), the EVF would cost atleast $300/-. :eek:

Why would anyone bother for this kind of prices?
 

Mike Hatam

Senior Subscriber Member
IF the rumor is true (which we don't know for sure), my guess is that this is a reaction to the coming Panny version (rumored to be a compact, like the E-P1, but with an EVF), and also to the reviews that are dinging the camera's main weakness as the lack of an EVF.

My guess is that this is a reaction by Oly after their initial release of the E-P1.

Also - many would still prefer an Optical Finder over an EVF, so those two do not preclude each other. The fact (rumored) that the EVF is detachable would allow you to switch between them.
 

pentacon6

New member
Well, obviously, it is a transplantation of Ricoh GX200's viewfinder......
If Oly wants to make such a accessary, I think she should release it at the same time.
Anyway, rumors always make you happy for a while, no matter it is true or not.
 

tom in mpls

Active member
Well, obviously, it is a transplantation of Ricoh GX200's viewfinder......
Yes, the link states that it is a Ricoh photoshopped onto the Oly, the purpose of which is to give an idea of what such an animal might look like. But it does raise a question in my mind--does the ricoh have special contacts for the viewfinder? I'm assuming it doesn't just use hotshoe contacts.
 

barjohn

New member
A closer examination of the hot shoe shows that this hot shoe has 5 pins plus ground. The pins exist to provide power and signal (especially the new pin located where the pin lock hole is located). Only two pins would be needed to carry the video and the center power pin for juice. Still, I have to question whether they will offer one.
 

scott kirkpatrick

Well-known member
The Ricoh GX-100 and 200 example suggests that you need more than 4-5 pins to connect to an EVF. Below the first picture is the hot shoe of a GR-D2, showing 4 pins, one of them larger and presumably ground. The second picture is the hot shoe and a mystery connector just below that the EVF uses, on a GX-100. The ground contacts on the GX-100 are much larger, and the socket below appears to have many parallel signal contacts, (GR-D2 photographed with the GX-100, and vice versa. Isn't the macro function on a small format digicam convenient?)

scott
 
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