Hello. I recently recieved my Elan 7E. I was shooting outdoors yesterday for the first time and in bright sunlight the display at the bottom of the viewfinder was difficult to read. I could read it but it was rather dim. Indoors or in the shade I have no problems. Is this normal?

Josh

-- Josh Schneider (joshsch@gte.net), December 09, 2000

Answers

I found the display difficult to see on both my old A-1's and on my Elan II's in bright light. It helps to really press your eye against the camera eyepiece to keep stray light out. Carol

-- Carolyn Hammett (chammett@tyler.net), December 11, 2000.

As you know, our eyes have to adjust to rapid changes in ambient light. For example, if one walks from bright sunlight directly into a very dim room, one may feel temporarily "blinded", but after a few minutes, one's eyes adjust to the dim light, and vision is then greatly improved. If one then suddenly returns to the outside bright light, the bright light will temporarily be almost painful, until their eyes re-adjust.

Canon should offer an eye cup to reduce this problem somewhat, and of course, if you're shooting from a tripod, one can simply cup a hand around the viewfinder to help block the surrounding light. At any rate, try to give your dominant eye time to adjust to the relative darkness of the viewfinder. There's nothing wrong with your camera--its simply a matter of letting your eye(s) adjust to large changes in brightness. If you are unusually sensitive to these changes, you can always glance at the camera's top right LCD display for much of the needed data.

By the way, I personally find it best to not wear sunglasses shortly before and between shots, because doing so may cause one to misjudge the characteristics of the prevailing ambient light.

-- kurt heintzelman (heintzelman.1@osu.edu), December 11, 2000.

Error: I should have said that "Canon probably does offer an eye cup..."

-- kurt heintzelman (heintzelman.1@osu.edu), December 11, 2000.