We always had SL in SLR and DSLR as “Single Lens”, and that stays with the new cameras, meraning that the photographer and the image-collection-piece(film, or sensor) both “look” through the same lens. EVIL does not say SL, so EVIL is out.

R meant Reflex, as in “mirror”, and instead, we have EVF Electronic Viewfinder or LCD Liquid Crystal Display.

EVF doesn’t specify that it uses LCD or Plasma or OLED other type of presentation, and is a great abberviation for any electronic viewfinder.

But LCD is wrong for back viewing devices made from other devices like OLED. Plasma, and so on, so we need a better generalized term than LCD.

But until we can generalize beyond “LCD”, I say we have:

DSL/EVF

and

DSL/LCD

… with or without interchangeable lenses. which we never specified before, only now do we wish to demarkate the new interchangeable lens systems from single assembly point and shoots.

So, let’s explore dealing with better abgerviations than IL and LCD.

But I also see the challenges in naming these new ones:

– The moniker “DSL/EVF” does not address “IL” Interchangeable Lenses (I note that no abbreviation before EVER did address Interchangeable Lenses — it’s a modern conceit).

– “EVF” implies an eye-level viewfinder that pure LCD-back cameras lack, instead opting to have the photographer “look at the camera, instead of the subject” as we did in the large format film days looking on the ground glass. THAT makes them truly “evil” in my mind’s eye! 😉

The Panasonic G/GH-series (not GF-series) and the Samsung NX (so far) ARE DSL/EVFs, however.

What we’re talking about here are the Panasonic GF-series, the Sony NEx-series, and the Olympus Pen-series models that have no EVF, but instead have only a back LCD.

How about when these models add an accessory EVF, if available? Than can we call them DSL/EVFs?

“EVIL” is evil, but it seems to stick as a name for the camera style. I prefer that we keep on looking, however for nomenclature that links to “SLR”.

Funny, but we never complained that the “SL” in “SLR” means SINGLE LENS when we were proud of having collections of MANY interchangeable lenses. We never called them MLRs.

SLR was compared to TLR as in TWIN LENS Reflex. We never called the few TILRs TILRs because “IL” Interchangeable Lens” wasn’t important. Rangefinders never distinguished “IL “Interchangeable Lenses” between, say the Leica M-style Rangefinder cameras with interchangeable lenses, and the Minolta HiMatic-style cameras with one fixed lens.

“IL” never seemed important to use before.

We can call the old SLRs SILRs, though we could call these new ones SILEs (pronounced “sillies”) for Single Interchangeable Lens Electronic cameras.

SILE?

Silly, eh? 😉

Click!

Love and hugs,

Peter Blaise Photography dot com

Minolta Rokkor Alpha DiMage Photographer