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Electronic viewfinder

Viewfinder using a small screen / From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

An electronic viewfinder (EVF) is a camera viewfinder where the image captured by the lens is displayed on a small screen (usually LCD or OLED) which the photographer can look through when composing their shot.[1] It differs from a live preview screen in being smaller and shaded from ambient light, and may also use less power. The sensor records the view through the lens, the view is processed, and finally projected on a miniature display which is viewable through the eyepiece.

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Old video camera viewfinder cutway, note the miniature CRT
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An Olympus PEN E-PL5 mounted with an external EVF unit: the Olympus VF-4
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EVF of Panasonic Lumix DMC-G85/G80 with 2,360,000 dots.

Digital viewfinders are used in digital still cameras and in video cameras. Some cameras (such as Panasonic, Sony, Fujifilm) have an automatic eye sensor which switches the display from screen to EVF when the viewfinder is near the eye. More modest cameras use a button to switch the display. Some have no button at all.[2]

While many cameras come with a built-in EVF, this is fixed in place and can only be used while holding the camera to the user's eye, which may not be convenient. Other cameras don't come with an EVF at all, or come with a low quality one. It is sometimes possible to get a separate, attachable EVF to use in these cases.[3]