OVF for Nex 7

<p>Hi Folk,<br /> Does anyone know if there is an OVF that is a shoe type for another brand could work on the Nex 7? E.G. a viewfinder for a Nikon, or a Leica etc.<br /> thanks, Mark<br>

Sirry, silly question. Please ignore it. Ta, Mark</p>

<p>Actually some enterprising folks are offering a add-on cold shoe for the NEX system. With that in place, there is no reason an OVF from a rangefinder camera could not be used.</p>

<p>For future reference, in case some searches and finds this question:<br /> An optical viewfinder just shows you the framing for a specific focal length. An OVF is independent of camera. Since everyone goes by the standard of 35mm/full frame, if you were to buy a 28mm viewfinder, it would work well for ANY camera with a hotshoe and a 28mm-equivalent lens. So, that 28mm viewfinder would work well whether your camera were a Nikon D800 with a 28mm lens, a NEX-7 with a 19mm lens, an Olympus PEN with a 14mm lens, etc. etc. etc. etc.</p>

<p>In addition, since you're already not using critical framing, it may work well for other similar focal lengths as well. For example, the Olympus OVF for its 17mm lens (34mm equivalent) works perfectly with the Panasonic 20mm lens (40mm equivalent). An OVF is just a piece of glass with etched frame-lines. So yes, any viewfinder works great on a NEX-7. They don't have any electronics, so you can just mount them on your hotshoe without issue, provided you have an adapter to convert the correct shape, or just hack down your OVF's shoe mount until it fits. However, considering that the NEX-7 has a built-in viewfinder, I would be curious as to why someone wants an OVF, unless you're following action with locked focus/deep depth of field.</p>

<p>Why not learn to point and shoot ? Viewfinders were for Kodachrome since you couldn't post process but were stuck with what you shot. Anyway I thought the NEX-7 has a EVF ... why would you want anything different?</p>

<p>Actually both Olympus and Panasonic make optical viewfinders. Check out the Oly VF-1 at Amazon about $98 and nearby probably you will find Pany's at about $138 [ from memory ]</p>

<p>Thanks for the responses folk, I was not really expecting one. I am aware the EVF is of good quality but coming from years of film photog (EOS3) then EOS 40D both with 70-200 2.8 and now with 24-105 L IS the EVF is un-natural to the eyes. I want to get the Nex7 for a holiday and it will be much lighter to carry and draw less attention than the big Canon glass. So, I will look for the Oly and Pana OVF's.<br>

Many Thanks again, Mark</p>

<p>As Ariel stated above, accessory OVFs generally only cover a single focal length lens. Therefore, they are of limited use with zoom lenses. One possible and fairly available exception comes to mind--the variable viewfinders made for the old Leica/Contax camera copies from the former Soviet Union. They can be of surprisingly good optical and mechanical quality but they are clunky to use and bulky compared to single focal length accessory OVFs. These finders used to be cheap and readily available from Ukrainian/Russian online sources as well as a few domestic sources but that may have changed in recent years. </p>

<p>But even this is not a particularly good solution since you would have to adjust the viewfinder to the focal length in use on the zoom every time you change the zoom. Thus the "clunky" I mentioned. </p>

<p>I have problem using the LCD for manual focusing and that is what I want to do with any camera I use. However, for framing the LCD is much better than the shoe mount OVF.</p>