Before purchasing the NX70, I cross shopped against the Canon XA10. One of the key reasons why I went with the NX70 was the nice optical viewfinder. Since I shoot mostly outdoors a nice viewfinder is important. LCD displays are not ideal in bright sunshine. The viewfinder on the Canon XA10 is terrible. I might have gone with the Canon and saved at least $1000 bucks.

Anyways, I was wondering if there was a way to activate both the LCD display and the optical viewfinder at the same time. This would come in handy when wanting to activate the menu options while looking through the viewfinder.

I haven't found a way yet, perhaps I just overlooked it?

Thanks,

Eric

Hi Eric - I don't think there is. I've used it on several jobs and it's a little frustrating. The March 2012 firmware update will hopefully add this as an option?

Thanks John,

You would think at least one of the product people would have thought it might be nice to allow users access to the menu while looking through the viewfinder?

I do hope firmware fixes this.

Sony has for a while forgotten that having BOTH VF and LCD on at the same time is a handy feature...

Used to be you'd flip the LCD over (so it points forward, towards the "talent"), and the VF would come on - was handy for candid interview shots, but the "feature" got lost somewhere around the SR11, IIRC

New owner of the XA10 and I agree with you, the viewfinder stinks especially with the BP819 battery on. I'd use it more if I could jam my eye against it but it just snaps back in against the pressure. So yeah, it's pretty much useless. I would use it if the sun was just in a horrible place but I can't speculate on the quality of the resulting video.

A lot of the features are performed on the touch lcd screen (touch focus, focus peaking/levels, slide zoom, manual exposure) that it makes more sense to be looking at the lcd most of the time. That said I'd love a nice viewfinder with a good extension and comfortable eye cup. Cheers

This is one of the great things about the NX70, the battery is tucked away in its internal compartment. All my previous cameras have had the battery on the rear, under the viewfinder, and they could (a) get in the way or (b) get a knock and risk losing power. Yes, they did it for waterproofing, but it is just so neat.

I love the NX70 viewfinder, it is super-high res for a camera of this spec.

mike,
can you manually wb on the nx70 like you can on the ex1r. theres a button on the front of cam for that. what about the nx70.
i almost bought the 70 as my backup but as has been said on here, the zoom control is horrible. i noticed this at nab when it was unveiled back in april.
is it actually going to be in the march firmware or is that just a rumor.

Jim,

I am new to the camera but that is one question I think I can answer! You can manually adjust the white balance on the NX70, through the touch screen.

As for the zoom control firmware, I do hope it is fact and not rumour. I am counting on Sony coming through with this, if not I'll be quite let down with Sony.

Sony Prime Support UK confirmed the firmware update to me, with an expected release date of March 2012. I'm sure it's coming, it's just the date may change.

And yep, Eric is right, the touchscreen is used to adjust WB. You can assign WB to one of the three custom "buttons" on the touchscreen for faster access.

The firmware confirmation is great news!

Before purchasing the NX70, I cross shopped against the Canon XA10. One of the key reasons why I went with the NX70 was the nice optical viewfinder. Since I shoot mostly outdoors a nice viewfinder is important. LCD displays are not ideal in bright sunshine. The viewfinder on the Canon XA10 is terrible. I might have gone with the Canon and saved at least $1000 bucks.

Really glad I saw this. I've been looking seriously at the XA10, but a decent viewfinder is essential for me as well.