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Viewfinders
Viewfinders, like digital camera LCD monitors, are used to compose and frame a scene. Viewfinders serve another important purpose. Because you must hold a camera against your face to look through the viewfinder, the camera is steadied and less prone to camera shake.
If your digital camera has a viewfinder, it will be one of two types:
Optical viewfinder
The Optical Viewfinder is the most common one found on digital cameras. Optical Viewfinders work well in both bright and low lighting conditions. It shows only about 75-90% of what the camera lens actually sees, not the total area of a shot. When looking through the eyepiece, there is a center auto focus bracket and parallax correction line at the top. Use the parallax correction line when taking close-up shots.
Electronic Viewfinder (EVF)
The Electronic Viewfinder is a small LCD. The size on many new digital cameras is between 2" - 3." While not quite as clear an an optical viewfinder, a LCD is more accurate than most optical viewfinders in that it shows the total area of the scene you are shooting.
An electronic viewfinder also displays cameras settings such as shutter speed and aperture. The advantage is that you don't have to take your eye away from the camera to look at the LCD screen for settings and accurate framing. One of the disadvantages of an electronic viewfinder is that it consumes battery power.
