Not all digital cameras have viewfinders. Digital cameras and smartphones have LCD screens for composing photos, and it’s only on higher end cameras that you get a viewfinder too. But they are worth having. Sometimes it’s difficult to see an LCD display properly in the bright glare of daylight, and sometimes it just feels more […]
Pentaprism
This is a key part of the optical viewfinder system of a digital SLR. It's a five-sided prism inside a housing on top of the camera that reflects the image captured by the lens and formed on the camera's focusing screen so that it's the right way up and the right way round for viewing through the camera's viewfinder eyepiece. Some cheaper DSLRs use a less expensive 'pentamirror' design instead. It costs less to make but does have a slight effect on the size and quality of the viewfinder image.