I recently remembered my old, original Nikon 1 J1 CX-format camera, which I bought as something of a transitional piece, having gone from 35mm SLR film, to an early Olympus battery-draining fixed-lens, 3 mpx handheld that was my entry point into digital photography. The Nikon 1 offered what I thought was the best of both worlds, a small form factor digital camera with interchangeable lenses. For a while, it became my camera of choice, although I never quite bonded with it the way I thought I should.

Part of this was the strange way Nikon forced one to power on the camera and then "unlock" the lens before shooting. OK, that was easy enough to adjust to, but the one thing that I could never ease into was using the LCD screen as the viewfinder.

My old 35mm SLRs (Minolta and Canon) both had through-the-lens metering and viewfinder systems where I could view and compose my shots, while using both hands to focus, set shutter speed and aperture opening. In a sense, I could do it all and still keep my attention on the subject.

When I finally moved to the Nikon D7xxx series, both LCD and viewfinder were available, and I never bother to use the screen for anything other than pre-shooting setup (I think Nikon may have earned enough ire from it's 1 customers to ultimately add an electronic viewfinder to the later models).

So, now I've pulled my old 1 out of mothballs, have added the 10-100mm autozoom lens which doesn't require either swapping lenses or the awkward rotation to start the process, and am thinking of finding out where this fits in my camera toolkit.

I'm still not comfortable using the LCD screen, and in some cases outdoors, the image is washed out by sunlight, but I'm wondering

a) Am I alone in preferring a viewfinder? I don't quite understand the difference between electronic and manual, but my eye in a cup seems to work.
b) How do those of you using the LCD make it work best for you? Are there tricks or tips I just don't know?

I recently remembered my old, original Nikon 1 J1 CX-format camera, which I bought as something of a transitional piece, having gone from 35mm SLR film, to an early Olympus battery-draining fixed-lens, 3 mpx handheld that was my entry point into digital photography. The Nikon 1 offered what I thought was the best of both worlds, a small form factor digital camera with interchangeable lenses. For a while, it became my camera of choice, although I never quite bonded with it the way I thought I should.

Part of this was the strange way Nikon forced one to power on the camera and then "unlock" the lens before shooting. OK, that was easy enough to adjust to, but the one thing that I could never ease into was using the LCD screen as the viewfinder.

My old 35mm SLRs (Minolta and Canon) both had through-the-lens metering and viewfinder systems where I could view and compose my shots, while using both hands to focus, set shutter speed and aperture opening. In a sense, I could do it all and still keep my attention on the subject.

When I finally moved to the Nikon D7xxx series, both LCD and viewfinder were available, and I never bother to use the screen for anything other than pre-shooting setup (I think Nikon may have earned enough ire from it's 1 customers to ultimately add an electronic viewfinder to the later models).

So, now I've pulled my old 1 out of mothballs, have added the 10-100mm autozoom lens which doesn't require either swapping lenses or the awkward rotation to start the process, and am thinking of finding out where this fits in my camera toolkit.

I'm still not comfortable using the LCD screen, and in some cases outdoors, the image is washed out by sunlight, but I'm wondering

a) Am I alone in preferring a viewfinder? I don't quite understand the difference between electronic and manual, but my eye in a cup seems to work.
b) How do those of you using the LCD make it work best for you? Are there tricks or tips I just don't know?

I recently remembered my old, original Nikon 1 J1 CX-format camera, which I bought as something of a transitional piece, having gone from 35mm SLR film, to an early Olympus battery-draining fixed-lens, 3 mpx handheld that was my entry point into digital photography. The Nikon 1 offered what I thought was the best of both worlds, a small form factor digital camera with interchangeable lenses. For a while, it became my camera of choice, although I never quite bonded with it the way I thought I should.

Part of this was the strange way Nikon forced one to power on the camera and then "unlock" the lens before shooting. OK, that was easy enough to adjust to, but the one thing that I could never ease into was using the LCD screen as the viewfinder.

My old 35mm SLRs (Minolta and Canon) both had through-the-lens metering and viewfinder systems where I could view and compose my shots, while using both hands to focus, set shutter speed and aperture opening. In a sense, I could do it all and still keep my attention on the subject.

When I finally moved to the Nikon D7xxx series, both LCD and viewfinder were available, and I never bother to use the screen for anything other than pre-shooting setup (I think Nikon may have earned enough ire from it's 1 customers to ultimately add an electronic viewfinder to the later models).

So, now I've pulled my old 1 out of mothballs, have added the 10-100mm autozoom lens which doesn't require either swapping lenses or the awkward rotation to start the process, and am thinking of finding out where this fits in my camera toolkit.

I'm still not comfortable using the LCD screen, and in some cases outdoors, the image is washed out by sunlight, but I'm wondering

a) Am I alone in preferring a viewfinder? I don't quite understand the difference between electronic and manual, but my eye in a cup seems to work.
b) How do those of you using the LCD make it work best for you? Are there tricks or tips I just don't know?