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Old 01-25-2014, 05:01 PM
spdrun spdrun is offline
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Join Date: May 2011
Location: NYC
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Botnst View Post
With a digital camera you could put the lens and photomultiplier in one hand and the memory chip somewhere else. The viewfinder needn't be attached to the body of a device. It could be worn over the eye.

It's inertia, not necessity, that drives camera design.
You could, but unless the three are wired together, you'd need three sets of batteries. The memory card also isn't very large.

A lot of cameras don't come with viewfinders anymore, but with a screen on back. This being said, optical viewfinders as found on some SLRs are actually a good thing. Illuminating an LCD eats power. An optical viewfinder allows the camera to use next to zero power unless actually taking a photo.

Personally, I'm surprised that no one makes a large lens with a pistol grip and a small box or cylinder for the image capture electronics, batteries, and memory card behind it, with a prismatic viewfinder on top. But perhaps that would be too easily mistaken for a hand cannon, leading to lawsuits...
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