Sony DSLR-A500 Viewfinder

Sony A500 Viewfinder

The Sony A500 features a digital SLR design, so the optical viewfinder offers a true, through-the-lens (TTL) display. A dioptric adjustment dial to the right of the eyepiece accommodates eyeglass wearers, letting them adjust the viewfinder optics between -2.5 to +1.0 diopters. The viewfinder eyepiece has a fairly typical eyepoint (specified at 19mm from the eyepiece, 15mm from the eyepiece frame with the dioptric adjustment set to -1 diopter). Magnification is pretty low at only 0.80x for a 50mm lens and -1 diopter of dioptric correction, but an improvement over the A380's 0.74x magnification. Coverage is specified at 95%, which is typical for non-pro SLRs.

The Sony A500's viewfinder uses a pentamirror design. The advantage of a pentamirror is it's lighter and less expensive; however an all-glass pentaprism design delivers more light to the viewfinder eyepiece, thanks to its more efficient internal reflection. A solid pentaprism isn't compatible with Sony's tilting-mirror Quick AF Live View mechanism, though.

The Sony A500's fairly extensive information display features a series of focus target marks in the center of the view that highlight briefly when the AF system is activated. The focus dots found inside AF targets on the A230, A330 and A380 are no longer present. Markers are provided for 16:9 shooting area, as well as spot metering area. They only appear when the associated feature is enabled. All markers are LCD overlays (as opposed to being etched on the focusing screen), so when the camera is shut off, none of them appear.

Camera information appears beneath the image area in a small strip, and reports the camera's major settings, such as shutter speed, aperture, flash mode, EV compensation, etc. To the far right side of the strip is the SteadyShot (anti-shake) scale, indicating the degree of stabilization whenever anti-shake mode is activated. The information readout in the viewfinder activates whenever you half-press the Shutter button, and remains active for a few seconds afterward.

A pair of horizontal infrared sensors just below the viewfinder detect your eye as it approaches the viewfinder, and deactivates the LCD information display if you have the Auto Off w/ VF option enabled in the Custom menu. (Note: our camera picked-up the IR beam in the image at right. The beam is invisible to the naked eye.) You can also set these sensors to initiate autofocus whenever your eye is in range of the eyepiece (Eye-Start AF), which makes the A500's autofocus seem even more responsive.