electronic viewfinder vs lcd screen made in china

The benefits of the viewfinder and LCD screen are often compared with one another. Depending on whom you ask, you might hear remarkably different opinions on the usability of the two.

As discussed above, photography is all about precision. Viewfinders have been around long before LCD screens, and therefore many photographers find viewfinders more comfortable to work with.

Viewfinders offer much more precision when you are shooting, especially on a bright day. It allows you to focus on the small details. Viewfinders reduce image distortion and capture an accurate image. That’s why most DSLRs and high-end mirrorless cameras today still have viewfinders.

Running out of battery is a nightmare for photographers, especially if you don’t have any spares. That’s why viewfinders are considered optimal in these situations. Viewfinders use comparatively much less battery than LCD screens.

If you are shooting in an area where electricity is scarce, or don’t have access to a charger or backup batteries, the viewfinder will be a better choice for you.

Viewfinders are very convenient to use and provide smooth handling. When looking through the viewfinder, it’s easy to keep the camera steady. This makes the viewfinder an optimal choice when you need to zoom in or have a slightly heavier camera.

For many people, this extra effort of adjusting your eyeglasses is troublesome. However, some viewfinder cameras have a built-in diopter that can help make it easier to use with glasses.

Viewfinders can be much smaller compared to LCD screens. As a result, you may not be able to see everything you’re capturing in the viewfinder accurately. This drawback is very important for photographers who want to preview every single detail when taking a picture.

To see details on viewfinders, especially the electronic ones, you have to zoom in on the frame. However, this can lower the resolution of the preview. Luckily, if most of your shots consist of zoom shots, this may not bother you much.

What sets LCD screens apart from viewfinders is their ability to provide 100% image coverage to the photographer. In comparison, cameras with a viewfinder offer around 90-95% of the image, sometimes less.

What you see through the viewfinder doesn’t always end up in the final result. Small details can be crucial. That’s why this 5-10% difference in image coverage can be a significant reason why you might choose an LCD screen over the viewfinder.

When you are in a lower field-of-view, framing can be much more difficult. Many people can’t take a picture while lying on the ground using a viewfinder. This is where LCD screens come in. Flexible LCDs make it easier for you to capture images when you can’t reach awkward angles.

LCD screens produce great results for night photography. LCD screens are often used for night photography due to their bright image playback quality. They help you focus on the small details when you are shooting at night.

An evident shortcoming of the LCD screen is its lack of utility on a bright day. Because of the glare, many people cannot use their LCD screen at all on a sunny day. It’s hard to see anything on the LCD except the reflections.

Another drawback to using an LCD screen is its difficulty in handling it. Holding the camera while looking through the LCD screen is difficult and takes a lot of effort, especially when you are zooming and trying to be precise.

Another disadvantage of LCD screens is the fact that they can easily overexpose your image. This should not be a problem for seasoned photographers who can improve the quality of the image with better handling and precision.

Those were some of the benefits and drawbacks of using a viewfinder and LCD screen to consider. So, which one is best? The answer depends on your personal preferences and budget.

If you’re a traditional photographer, you’ll probably be more comfortable with the viewfinder. If you are a photographer who likes to focus on small details and image quality, you should opt for the LCD screen.

Taking LCD viewfinders as an example, the H**dman (names withheld to protect the guilty!) is as cheap and nasty a dollar"s worth of plastic as you will find - yet sells in the UK for well over a hundred times that cost.

Well, it"s cheaply made - and (in stock form looks even cheaper!). Comparing it to a Letus Hawk LCD VF that I used on a GH1, it"s enough to make you weep! The Letus was all aluminium, with ground glass optics in three groups - it was, in fact, a precision optical instrument, and was priced accordingly.

The screen is of decent quality, it"s sharp and detailed, has very good colour reproduction (after some fairly basic adjustments) and also has a good dynamic range (again, after adjustments)

I"m not entirely sure why it"s there - possibly to attach some sort of lanyard to (perhaps a throwback to the origins of the lens assembly, when used in those nasty LCD VF"s that stick to the back of the camera LCD screen)

Are these people for real??? - don"t they know that you can walk out of any electronics store with an *extremely* advanced large screen TV for the price of their miserable little rip-off 3" EVF"s?!!

But not everyone wants to give up the viewfinder. Bruce Stansbury, a photographer in New York who uses both digital and film cameras, said there was still something to be said for viewfinders. "When you hold a film camera to your eye, it puts up a physical barrier between you and your subject," he said. "It"s like it"s saying, "Hey, I"m doing this thing." "

Mr. Casas, 54, who was touring New York City with his daughter, said he was honing his skills as a photographer, hoping he could do professional work when he retired as an assistant city attorney in San Antonio. On the trip, he used his Nikon D70 single-lens reflex camera, which has only an optical viewfinder. His daughter used a Nikon Coolpix digital camera, which has a screen and no optical viewfinder.

But this year, Olympus is challenging the S.L.R. camera"s dependence on optical viewfinders. Its Evolt E-330, which costs about $1,000, bears a rear-mounted 2.5-inch L.C.D. screen that can preview pictures just as the screen on a digital point-and-shoot camera does. Olympus calls the feature, a first for an S.L.R., full-time live-view, color L.C.D.

"For some 40 years now, the S.L.R. user has been locked into a shooting style similar to looking through a keyhole on a closed door," said Sally Smith Clemens, product manager for Olympus Imaging America. "A very small slice of reality is exposed through the viewfinder."

LCD screens are great, and the quality improves with each new generation of DSLR cameras appearing on the market. But, many professional photographers prefer to use a camera"s viewfinder. We explain the benefits and disadvantages of each.

LCD screens have advantages, but so do optical viewfinders. When it"s time to frame a photo with your DSLR camera, you need to decide which side of the viewfinder vs. LCD debate you lean. Unlike the optical viewfinder, the LCD screen displays the entire frame that the sensors capture. Optical viewfinders, even on a professional level DSLR, only show 90-95% of the image. You lose a small percentage on the edges of the image.

Digital SLRs aren"t light, and it"s easier to produce a crisp, sharp image when you hold the camera up to your eye to use the viewfinder. That way, you can support and steady the camera and lens with your hands. But, viewfinders are generally smaller than LCD screens. Viewfinders are also less convenient to use, especially if you wear glasses.

At the end of the day, though, as intelligent as digital cameras are, the human eye can resolve more detail than an LCD screen. You get a sharper and more accurate view of your image by using the viewfinder.

The biggest drawback with LCD screens is probably shooting in sunlight. Depending on the quality of the screen, you may not be able to use it in bright sunshine because of the glare. All you see are reflections off the screen. Also, the crystals contained within LCD screens tend to flare in bright sunlight, making the situation worse.

Holding the camera at arm"s-length while looking at the LCD screen—and then keeping the camera steady while zooming in on a subject—takes effort. When you use the LCD screen this way, you often end up with a blurry image.

No matter how good an LCD screen is, it"s unlikely to give an accurate overview of the image you took. Most overexpose an image by as much as one full stop. It"s best to acquire the technical knowledge about photography, rather than rely on the LCD screen to determine image quality. With this technical knowledge, you"ll have the confidence your settings are correct, and your images are properly exposed. So, in most cases, it"s best to use the viewfinder. But, if you like the convenience of an LCD, or you wear glasses, use the LCD. It"s mostly a matter of personal preference.

Shooting with the rear LCD screen on your camera may be convenient, but you"re also peering through a filter of colors and shades that you may not have been aware are altering the way you perceive your shots.

There are several reasons why you might want to take photographs using the rear LCD screen on your digital camera. It could be to overlay information such as a spirit level, camera settings, or to utilize the rule of thirds grid in order to achieve better composition. Perhaps you wear glasses or have an issue with vision in which using the viewfinder may detrimentally impact your ability to compose or shoot. It might even be that you"re shooting with your camera at awkward angles, maybe holding the camera down low to the ground to capture a macro shot of a flower or perhaps overhead at a crowded concert, where a tilting or vari-angle screen can be articulated to help with composition.

Camera brands use different LCD screens, so you and a friend could be taking a picture of the same scene and end up with wildly different-looking results when doing an image review together. Even models within specific manufacturers use different screens, so the reliability and uniformity of each screen for things such as color can be over-emphasized.

With the advent of mirrorless cameras and the introduction of the electronic viewfinder (EVF), we now have digital cameras where we literally can"t avoid shooting and reviewing photographs through a screen. The benefits of using an EVF over the rear screen is that the screen is sheltered from reflections and extraneous light, which can affect the perception of photos when using the rear screen. However, these tiny little screens inside a small box in the camera still don"t produce an ideal picture of your photographs.

Whatever the reason, it"s important not to rely on the scene on your rear screen. An assumption that what you see is what you"ve taken is tempting but a little foolish. That"s because the screen has a limit to the light and shade it can display. It also has a color balance, which can affect the white balance or color profile you attribute to shots. This unintentional filtration can have a negative effect on how you capture images. Some cameras have the option to turn the brightness of their screen up and down, which also affects how images on the rear screen are seen (whether using live view or to display photos already taken) as well as altering color balance of the rear screen manually. One way to mitigate this is to turn on the histogram and use that.

Notwithstanding these options and difficulties in the limitation of the screen technology, where you view your photos also has a big impact on what you see. Looking at a screen at night, for example, you might need to turn the brightness down to avoid blinding yourself. The vivid lower frequency colors of sunset or sunrise light may be cascading warm tones across and around the screen, forcing you to perceive the color temperature in the photograph differently. If you don"t believe me, have a look at color theory illusions online, and you"ll see just how easy it is for the eye to be tricked into perceiving things as the same, even though they"re different, or seeing the same colors or shades in a scene when in fact they"re completely different (remember the dress from 2015?).

That"s why I suggest you can maintain a healthy balance between relying on your rear screen for certain aspects of shooting such as composition, leveling, framing a scene, and getting a rough visual idea of how the photograph is coming together. But I would advise against relying on the screen to discern color, brightness of highlights and shadows, and other such optical aspects. For this, I would recommend the use of the histogram in camera, especially when needing to check if highlights or shadows have been over/underexposed and have become clipped. Your camera may also have a dedicated function to alert you to this. This and combining the approach with color swatches and gray cards can be a very good way to attain accurate color and exposure values in photographs.

It"s good practice to take stills in raw format, where the color and exposure is much more flexibly editing in post-production image editing software and study images on a decent monitor screen that can display a wide color gamut with deep shadows and bright highlights to get the most accurate view of what your photographs actually look like.

Try to view them in a low-light room with minimal reflections. You might want to consider using a screen hood to remove unwanted reflections further from obscuring your view (think of viewing shots on the rear screen outside during the midday sun and how difficult it is to see what"s going on without putting your hand round to screen to shade it from the bright light). So, although the rear screen is incredibly useful, it"s important not to rely on the rear screen for color rendition and exposure accuracy and instead look for more reliable methods for balancing your digital photos.

If you"ve had a shoot ruined by the color or brightness bias of your rear screen or perhaps think that the rear screen is the better way to compose shots over the optical viewfinder or relying on a good photographic computer monitor, then I"d love to hear your thoughts in the comments below.

Most modern digital cameras have two ways to let the user see what he/she is going to shoot and to compose their images. The first way is using the viewfinder, and the second way is using the LCD screen on the back of the camera.

A viewfinder is one of the most basic elements of any camera, it is the part of the camera that you hold up to your eye and look through it to preview an image before you take your shot. There are two types: Optical Viewfinder (OVF), which is usually found only on DSLR cameras, and electronic viewfinder (EVF), which is common in a compact, bridge, and mirrorless cameras.

Optical viewfinders (OVFs) are part of the known design of the DSLR cameras. It presents an unfiltered and unaltered view of the scene as you compose your shot. A DSLR (Digital Single Lens Reflex camera) is so-called because it has a reflex mirror. This reflects light coming in through the lens up into an optical viewfinder (OVF) via a pentaprism that ensures you see the scene the right way round through the camera’s eyepiece. This means that with an OVF you are seeing what the lens sees, reflected but unprocessed.

Looking through an optical viewfinder is no different than looking through a window: nothing is changed in any way, shape, or form. An OVF lets you see exactly what your shot will look like, and it shows you a world that’s clear and contrasty, and real.

OVFs have no issue with accurate color rendition or screen refresh rates, nor do they struggle in low light; they are just like windows. Camera manufacturers provide the viewfinders with information along the bottom of the screen, such as an exposure bar, key camera settings, etc. OVFs also have indicators for focus points as well as framing guides.

A phenomenon is known as viewfinder blackout (You can’t see the image while pressing the shutter button), because, the mirror in a DSLR camera flips up and out of the way to let light pass through to the image sensor. During this process, the OVF goes completely dark. It is not an important issue, but when you are shooting fast-moving subjects, the short viewfinder blackout period can be enough for the subject to move around quite a bit.

In a mirrorless camera design, the mirror and the pentaprism are removed from the design, so there is no optical viewfinder. Instead, an electronic viewfinder (EVF) is adapted.

The electronic viewfinder (EVF) uses the information from the imaging sensor to display an image on a small LCD or OLED screen. This means that an EVF shows the image that the sensor outputs, which can be significantly different from the view through the lens.

Electronic viewfinders will show exactly what your scene will look like when photographed, and let you see instantly, in real-time, whether your shot is exposed correctly or not.

Viewfinders are smaller compared to LCD screens. As a result, you may not be able to see everything you’re capturing in the viewfinder accurately. This drawback is very important for photographers who want to preview every single detail when taking a picture.

However, it is a completely different matter when it comes to DSLR, although it is still possible to compose images on the rear screen in what is known as

When you switch a DSLR to Live View mode, the reflex mirror is lifted out of the way and the shutter is opened. Light can now pass through to the CMOS sensor, where the image is formed, and this is displayed live on the rear LCD display. In this way, Live View works just like using a mirrorless camera.

When using the LCD screen you can zoom in close on a specific area to make sure it is focused and can easily judge whether it is tack sharp or just a bit fuzzy. For most DSLRs, there will be an option in one of the menus to enable a button on your camera to zoom in during Live View and even set the percentage of zoom which tells you how much it will magnify the image.

When you are shooting at a lower or higher angle (not at eye level), framing can be much more difficult. Many people can’t take a picture while lying on the ground using a viewfinder. This is where LCD screens come in. Flexible LCDs make it easier for you to capture images when you can’t reach awkward angles.

Some modern cameras have the ability to do various types of effects like selective coloring, miniature, and black-and-white, among many others. Think of them as though you are adding filters, but in real-time. Using the LCD screen allows you to experiment with different types of creative image effects, and see how they can affect your photography before you even click the shutter.

The LCD screen has a distinct advantage in low light where the image on the LCD will be brightened so it is easier to see your subject and compose, whereas the viewfinder will become dim as the light fades.

The biggest drawback with LCD screens is probably shooting in sunlight. Depending on the quality of the screen, you may not be able to use it in bright sunshine because of the glare. All you see are reflections off the screen. In addition, the crystals contained within LCD screens tend to flare in bright sunlight, making the situation worse.

Holding the camera at arm’s length while looking at the LCD screen, and then keeping the camera steady while zooming in on a subject takes effort. When you use the LCD screen this way, you often end up with a blurry image. It is better to use

In most cases, it is best to use the viewfinder. However, if you like the convenience of an LCD, or you wear glasses, use the LCD. It is mostly a matter of personal preference.

Using an LCD screen is most useful when shooting static subjects as looking at the rear LCD panel at arm’s length and trying to take pictures is not recommended. Instead, the camera should ideally be placed on a tripod to allow the full benefits to be attained. This makes the LCD screen perfectly suited to still life, landscape, architectural photography, and EOS Movie shooting.

Digital and digital movie cameras share an optical system, typically using a lens with a variable diaphragm to focus light onto an image pickup device.shutter admit a controlled amount of light to the image, just as with film, but the image pickup device is electronic rather than chemical. However, unlike film cameras, digital cameras can display images on a screen immediately after being recorded, and store and delete images from memory. Many digital cameras can also record moving videos with sound. Some digital cameras can crop and stitch pictures and perform other elementary image editing.

Steven Sasson, an engineer at Eastman Kodak, invented and built a self-contained electronic camera that used a CCD image sensor in 1975.Fujifilm began developing CCD technology in the 1970s.

Nikon has been interested in digital photography since the mid-1980s. In 1986, while presenting to Photokina, Nikon introduced an operational prototype of the first SLR-type electronic camera (Still Video Camera), manufactured by Panasonic.pixels. Storage media, a magnetic floppy disk inside the camera allows recording 25 or 50 B&W images, depending on the definition.

The first commercial camera phone was the Kyocera Visual Phone VP-210, released in Japan in May 1999.pixel front-facing camera.digital images, which could be sent over e-mail, or the phone could send up to two images per second over Japan"s Personal Handy-phone System (PHS) cellular network.Samsung SCH-V200, released in South Korea in June 2000, was also one of the first phones with a built-in camera. It had a TFT liquid-crystal display (LCD) and stored up to 20 digital photos at 350,000-pixel resolution. However, it could not send the resulting image over the telephone function, but required a computer connection to access photos.J-SH04, a Sharp J-Phone model sold in Japan in November 2000.cell phones had an integrated digital camera and by the early 2010s, almost all smartphones had an integrated digital camera

Digital camera, partially disassembled. The lens assembly (bottom right) is partially removed, but the sensor (top right) still captures an image, as seen on the LCD screen (bottom left).

Compact cameras are usually designed to be easy to use. Almost all include an automatic mode, or "auto mode", which automatically makes all camera settings for the user. Some also have manual controls. Compact digital cameras typically contain a small sensor which trades-off picture quality for compactness and simplicity; images can usually only be stored using lossy compression (JPEG). Most have a built-in flash usually of low power, sufficient for nearby subjects. A few high end compact digital cameras have a hotshoe for connecting to an external flash. Live preview is almost always used to frame the photo on an integrated LCD. In addition to being able to take still photographs almost all compact cameras have the ability to record video.

Some bridge cameras have a lens thread to attach accessories such as wide-angle or telephoto converters as well as filters such as UV or Circular Polarizing filter and lens hoods. The scene is composed by viewing the display or the electronic viewfinder (EVF). Most have a slightly longer shutter lag than a DSLR. Many of these cameras can store images in a raw format in addition to supporting JPEG.

In late 2008, a new type of camera emerged, called a DSLR camera that does not require a reflex mirror, a key component of the former. While a typical DSLR has a mirror that reflects light from the lens up to the optical viewfinder, in a mirrorless camera, there is no optical viewfinder. The image sensor is exposed to light at all times, giving the user a digital preview of the image either on the built-in rear LCD screen or an electronic viewfinder (EVF).

These are simpler and more compact than DSLRs due to not having a lens reflex system. MILCs, or mirrorless cameras for short, come with various sensor sizes depending on the brand and manufacturer, these include: a small 1/2.3 inch sensor, as is commonly used in bridge cameras such as the original Pentax Q (more recent Pentax Q versions have a slightly larger 1/1.7 inch sensor); a 1-inch sensor; a Micro Four Thirds sensor; an APS-C sensor found in Sony NEX series and α "DSLR-likes", Fujifilm X series, Pentax K-01, and Canon EOS M; and some, such as the Sony α7, use a full frame (35 mm) sensor, with the Hasselblad X1D being the first medium format mirrorless camera. Some MILCs have a separate electronic viewfinder to compensate the lack of an optical one. In other cameras, the back display is used as the primary viewfinder in the same way as in compact cameras. One disadvantage of mirrorless cameras compared to a typical DSLR is its battery life due to the energy consumption of the electronic viewfinder, but this can be mitigated by a setting inside the camera in some models.

There are also a number of add-on camera modules for smartphones, they are called lens-style cameras (lens camera or smart lens). They contain all the essential components of a digital camera inside a DSLR lens-shaped module, hence the name, but lack any sort of viewfinder and most controls of a regular camera. Instead, they are connected wirelessly and/or mounted to a smartphone to be used as its display output and operate the camera"s various controls.

Digital single-lens reflex cameras (DSLR) is a camera with a digital sensor that utilizes a reflex mirror to split or direct light into the viewfinder to produce an image.

Cameras with fixed semi-transparent mirrors, also known as DSLT cameras, such as the Sony SLT cameras, are single-lens without a moving reflex mirror as in a conventional DSLR. A semi-transparent mirror transmits some of the light to the image sensor and reflects some of the light along the path to a pentaprism/pentamirror which then goes to an optical view finder (OVF) as is done with a reflex mirror in DSLR cameras. The total amount of light is not changed, just some of the light travels one path and some of it travels the other. The consequences are that DSLT cameras should shoot a half stop differently from DSLR. One advantage of using a DSLT camera is the blind moments a DSLR user experiences while the reflecting mirror is moved to send the light to the sensor instead of the viewfinder do not exist for DSLT cameras. Because there is no time at which light is not traveling along both paths, DSLT cameras get the benefit of continuous auto-focus tracking. This is especially beneficial for burst-mode shooting in low-light conditions and also for tracking when taking video.

The approximate count of remaining photos until space exhaustion is calculated by the firmware throughout use and indicated in the viewfinder, to prepare the user for an impending necessary hot swap of the memory card, and/or file offload.

When digital cameras became common, many photographers asked whether their film cameras could be converted to digital. The answer was not immediately clear, as it differed among models. For the majority of 35 mm film cameras the answer is no, the reworking and cost would be too great, especially as lenses have been evolving as well as cameras. For most a conversion to digital, to give enough space for the electronics and allow a liquid crystal display to preview, would require removing the back of the camera and replacing it with a custom built digital unit.

The camera body is weather sealed at 95 points (including the electronic viewfinder) helping it withstand extreme conditions of dust, moisture and low temperatures. This means that the camera can comfortably handle a wide variety of shooting situations, be it shooting stills or video. This means the GFX100 is perfectly suited to being used in a studio but also outdoors in harsher environments.Temperature-10℃ – 40℃Humidity10 – 80% (No condensation)Dust-resistant Weather-resistantSealing parts of body 76 / EVF 19

The rear panel features the main 3.2-inch 2.36-million dot LCD monitor that has 100% coverage and tilts in three directions, 90 degrees upward, 45 degrees downward and 60 degrees to the right. The use of capacitive touchscreen panel allows easy framing and shooting in high and low angles, which can be difficult when using the EVF.Monitor3.2 inch, Aspect Ratio 4:3, Approx.2360K-dot Tilt-Type,

Touch Screen color LSD Monitor (Approx.100% Coverage)TiTing DirectionThree directionsLCD Brightness-5 – +5(30-800cd/m²)LCD Color-5 – +5LCD Color Adjustment[R]-5 – +5 [B]-5 – +5

The top panel features a clear, 1.8-inch B/W sub LCD monitor that displays the main shooting settings such as shutter speed, aperture, ISO sensitivity and exposure compensation, as well as function icons, remaining number of frames (stills) and remaining filming time (video). This display can be configured according to what information you want to be displayed. When you switch between stills and video modes, all the settings shown on this sub monitor also change accordingly, ensuring that all relevant data is available at hand.Size1.80 inchNumber of dots303×230-dotTypeLCD MonitorAspect Ratio4:3

The GFX100 comes with a detachable 5.76M dot EVF with approx. 100% coverage. Resolution priority, frame rate priority and AF priority can be selected in boost mode for live view depending on the subject.Finder0.5 inch Approx. 5.76 million dots OLED Color Viewfinder

Coverage of Viewing Area vs. Capturing Area: Approx. 100%EyepointApprox. 23mm (from the Rear End of the Camera’s Eyepiece)Diopter Adjustment-4 – +2m-1Magnification0.86× with 50mm Lens (35mm Equivalent) at infinity and Diopter set to -1.0m-1Diagonal Angle of ViewApprox. 41° (Horizontal Angle of View: Approx. 33° )EVF BrightnessAUTO / -7 – +5 (50 – 800cd/m2)EVF Color-5 – +5EVF Color AdjustmentR -5 – +5 B -5 – +5

The GFX100 is equipped with a feather touch shutter button that responds to delicate shutter release actions. The button reacts to the subtlest movements of the finger when gripping the camera body firmly in both portrait and landscape orientations. The use of the electronic front curtain shutter minimizes release time lag to give even greater confidence in shutter operation.

Key features of the M11 include an expanded sensitivity range of ISO 64-50,000, the latest-generation Maestro III image processor, extended battery life, USB-C connectivity, 64Gb internal storage, a 2.3 million pixel touchscreen LCD, and a more streamlined and intuitive menu system.

Speaking of the shutter curtain, the M11 is the first ever M-series camera to offer an electronic shutter in addition to its traditional mechanical shutter. This allows it to offer a top shutter speed of 1/16000th second in addition to the 1/4000th second speed when using the mechanical shutter, which in turn allows you to shoot both completely silently without vibration and also shoot at wide-open apertures in bright sunlight using the fastest Leica lenses without having to employ an ND filter.

The M11 is a very traditional camera that doesn"t provide any form of image stabilisation, either in the camera body or in the M-series lenses. Leica have made one key improvement, though, which makes focusing in live view mode easier than before, namely the addition of electronic stabilization to the magnified view when using the the rear LCD or optional Visoflex 2 EVF.

The configurable function button that was on the front of the M10 has been more logically moved to the M11"s top-plate, alongside the shutter button, which when pressed displays a magnified view on the LCD screen to aid with precise focusing adjustment.

Squeeze the shutter release button in single shot mode to take a maximum 60 megapixel resolution photo and the screen instantly displays the resultant image.

Naturally there is a vacant hotshoe for an accessory flash on top of the camera, which also accepts the optional Leica Visoflex 2, a 3.7 megapixel electronic accessory viewfinder if you prefer to compose with an EVF.

Compared to the multitude of options that other manufacturer"s cameras offer, the Leica M11"s main menu is refreshingly pared back, with a mere 26 options in total. Annoyingly, although you can directly interact with the control panel via the LCD screen, you can"t also use the touch-screen interface to navigate through the menu or select options, instead relying on the navigation wheel/arrows.

The size of the back plate LCD screen is 3-inches and the resolution is a respectable 2.3 million pixels, bringing the M11 up to date with the latest digital cameras.

With the 3-inch LCD screen taking up about two thirds of the back plate, this leaves room for a column of 3 square buttons ranged down the left hand side of the screen, whilst over at the right hand side sits a familiar cross key/command pad style arrangement.

The buttons at the left of the LCD are both clearly marked and instantly comprehended. From the top we have a Play button for reviewing previously captured images, a configurable FN button which by default accesses the Live View mode, and a Menu button for opening the customisable Favorites menu and and the Main Menu system.

Above the LCD screen is the viewfinder, which is the same as the one on the M10, offering a magnification factor of 0.73x. The widest focal length that it covers is 28mm, so you"ll have to use the LCD screen or buy the optional EVF for wider-angle lenses.

Three different focusing aids are provided on the Leica M11 - auto magnification (x3 or x6), focus peaking and auto magnification plus focus peaking. With the bigger screen scale and higher resolution we found it easier to accurately determine pin sharpness than on previous Leica digital cameras.

The set of un-marked cross keys on the right of the LCD screen moves the magnification loupe freely around the frame for even better assessment of sharpness, either on the LCD or the Visoflex electronic viewfinder.

In the centre of the cross-keys we find an un-marked button which acts like a standard "display" button. A press of this in capture mode removes the icons for the shooting mode in play, number of shots remaining, battery life, focus and metering mode from the screen to provide a clearer view of the subject.

The Hasselblad X1D II 50c is a modern medium-format mirrorless camera with a 51 megapixel sensor, large 3.6-inch touchscreen LCD and an improved electronic viewfinder, all housed in a beautifully crafted body. Read our in-depth Hasselblad X1D II 50c review now...

The Leica M10 is a new digital rangefinder camera, offering a 24 megapixel full-frame sensor, Maestro II Processor, optical viewfinder, built-in wi-fi connectivity and 5fps burst shooting. Is this the best ever digital M camera? Find out now by reading our in-depth Leica M10 review now...

The Leica M10-D is a simplified version of the M10 and M10-P digital rangefinder cameras, replacing the rear LCD screen with an exposure compensation dial. Why on earth would you consider buying a digital camera without an LCD screen?! Find out now by reading our in-depth Leica M10-D review...

The Leica M10-P is a stealthier, quieter version of the existing M10 digital rangefinder camera, offering a 24 megapixel full-frame sensor, Maestro II Processor, touchscreen control, optical viewfinder, built-in spirit level and 5fps burst shooting. Is the quietest M camera also the best ever digital M camera? Find out now by reading our in-depth Leica M10-P review...

The Leica M10-R is a brand new digital rangefinder camera, offering an upgraded 40 megapixel full-frame colour sensor, super-quiet shutter, and touch screen operation. Find out if this is the most versatile M10 camera ever by reading our in-depth Leica M10-R review, complete with full-size sample photos.

Leica had a real challenge this time around. In just a little over a decade, the legendary German camera maker had progressed from its first rudimentary attempt at a digital rangefinder camera in the M8 to what I dubbed the quintessential digital M with the M10. And since its introduction in 2017, the M10 has gotten some significant updates – the M10-P with an ultra-quiet shutter, touchscreen and level gauge, then later the M10-R, which upped the sensor resolution from 24 megapixels all the way to 40. How could a digital M be improved much further?