seeing the whole picture?

[chris1968]

one thing that bugged me on the good old film based 35mm slrs was that 100% coverage in the viewfinder was only ever found on pro-spec models, unlike faster shutter speeds, faster frames per second etc it never filtered down to the consumer models.

Now, on the vast majority of DSLRs they are using a sensor way smaller than a 35mm frame so, to my tiny mind i figured the manufacturers would use the prism's from older 35mm consumer models (which gave say 95% coverage on 35mm) on the DSLRs as, given the smaller size of the sensor v 35mm frame, they'd surely give 100% viewfinder coverage?

To me thats a more valuable improvement than increasing burst rate - i never find landscape or stil life moving that quick

[gstark]

Chris,

The answer is no, and it's, from what i can gather, purely a cost and weight reduction measure.

Consumer level DSLRs don't even have a pentaprism - they have a pentamirror. That includes the D50, D70, the Dribble, and I think the 20D as well. Don't know about the Pentax, but if I could be bothered it'd be a 2 minute Google to find out.

Alas, I can't.