Nikon D5000 Viewfinder
As with most DSLRs, the Nikon D5000 has an optical viewfinder that lets you view your subject through the lens. Following a popular trend, though, the camera also offers a Live view mode, in which the mirror flips up and the main image sensor continuously captures a live image of the subject, displaying it on the rear-panel LCD screen. The Nikon D5000 is the first Nikon with an articulating LCD, making its Live View mode that much more useful.
Nikon says the D5000's viewfinder provides a magnification of 0.78x and a coverage of about 95%. (We measured slightly higher coverage on our production-level sample of the D5000.) The Nikon D5000's dioptric correction (for eyeglass wearers) has a range from -1.7 to +0.7 diopter, adjusted via a slider on the right side of the viewfinder eyepiece housing. The viewfinder has an eyepoint height of 17.9mm at -1 diopter. This is enough that most eyeglass wearers should be able to see the full viewfinder area without having to mash their glasses against the viewfinder bezel. The Nikon D5000's viewfinder employs a pentamirror design, rather than the brighter but heavier and more costly pentaprism system.
The graphic and table below shows what information is displayed in Nikon D5000's viewfinder.
1 |
On-demand framing grid
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13
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"K" (appears when memory remains for over 1000 frames)
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2 |
Reference circle for
Center-Weighted metering |
14
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Flash-ready indicator
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3 |
"No memory card" warning
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15
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Flexible program indicator
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4 |
Battery indicator
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16
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Electronic analog exposure display
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5 |
Focus points
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Exposure compensation display
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6 |
Focus indicator
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17
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Flash compensation indicator
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7 |
Autoexposure (AE) lock indicator
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18 |
Exposure compensation indicator
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8 |
Shutter speed
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19 |
Auto ISO indicator
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9 |
Aperture (f-number)
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20 |
Warning indicator
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10 |
Battery indicator
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11 |
Bracketing Indicator
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| 12 |
Number of exposures remaining
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Number of shots remaining before memory buffer fills
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White balance recording indicator
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Exposure compensation value
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Flash compensation value
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Capture mode indicator
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ISO sensitivity value
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Viewfinder Test Results
Coverage
Good accuracy with the optical viewfinder, excellent with the LCD monitor's Live View mode.
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| 70mm f/2.8, Optical | 70mm f/2.8, Live View LCD |
The Nikon D5000's optical viewfinder proved fairly accurate, with just over 96% coverage when measured with our Sigma 70mm f/2.8 test lens. This is very good for a consumer model, and is better than the coverage Nikon claims (95%), though the viewfinder image in our production-level test sample was shifted very slightly vertically. The camera's Live View LCD mode was extremely accurate, however, with 100% coverage.
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