About viu
The camera:
Viu is a compact no-nonsense digital rangefinder-camera, which enables the photographer to reclaim creative control. There’s no smile-detection or other silly functions, only a large and bright optical viewfinder with a brilliant split-image focusing patch, a fixed 42mm (film-equivalent) F2-lens with a mechanical aperture ring and focusing-lever, a shutter speed dial, an ISO-dial, a shutter, a power switch and an lcd display for reviewing images.
In it’s compact house it affords an APS-size image sensor with 10mpx, which together with the fixed 7-elements lens offers everything the photographer can ask for in image quality.
The concept:
«A camera is an instrument that teaches people how to see without a camera»
Dorothea Lange
If you want to buy a camera today you have three choises, as I see it:
1. A compact point-and-shoot. These have no optical viewfinders, are loaded with nonsense-functions claming creative control over the photographer, and feels like operating cellular phones. I predict these cameras will eventually be replaced by cell phones as camera phones get better.
2. A consumer DSLR. These have interchangeable lenses and optical viewfinders (albeit often small and dark), but most people who buy them never change the often crap kit lens. They’re so loaded with advanced functions, mimicking their professional counterparts, that most people never even learn the basics in photography – how to control shutter and aperture, how to compose, and more importantly; how to see. The DSLR’s are often large and bulky, and so are the lenses. Many people are reluctant to even bring their cameras with them, as it’s such a drag. What you end up with is a needlessly large and bulky megapixelmaniac point and shoot which mostly lives on the shelf. Until the next model comes, making the latter “outdated”, in say … three months.
3. A professional DSLR. These are great at what they do, in the hands of a skilled photographer, just like the consumer ones. For a lot of people though, they are too bulky, too expensive, and comes with countless functions never needed. Also, they’re not very discreet, they’re often plasticky and (in my humble opinion) always ugly.
SO … What’s missing in this range?
There’s no digital compact on the market which fulfills these basic requirements:
Large and bright optical viewfinder, which affords …
Easy and precise manual focusing and intuitive composing.
Fast quality lens.
Discrete and attractive.
manual exposure controls at your fingertips. (shutterdial, aperture ring and ISO-dial.)
Reasonable large quality image sensor with a reasonable amount of megapixels (say 8-10).
Viu is an attempt to fill this gap by creating a compact and candid digital ranefinder, ready to fight megapixelmaniacs, nonsense functions, and cameras which takes the pictures for you. Viu offers a completely different approach to digital imaging with its intuitive eye-hand coordinated handling.
Viu doesn’t take pictures. You do.
The inspiration
Compact rangefinder, Olympus 35 RC. Photo: Rama, Wikipedia
There’s plenty of compact rangefinders fitting my project description. Only problem is they’re analogue, and they’re not in production.
Stephen Gandy at Cameraquest writes:
Rangefinder cameras
A rangefinder camera is a camera fitted with a rangefinder: a range-finding focusing mechanism allowing the photographer to measure the subject distance and take photographs that are in sharp focus. Most varieties of rangefinder show two images of the same subject, one of which moves when a calibrated wheel is turned; when the two images coincide and fuse into one, you’re in focus.
Since there is no moving mirror, as used in SLRs, there is no momentary blackout of the subject being photographed, the camera is often quieter and usually smaller and less obtrusive. These qualities make rangefinders more attractive for action-grabbing candid shots and street photography, and where portability matters. The lack of a mirror allows lenses to project deep into the camera body, making high-quality wide-angle lenses easier to design. Rangefinder focusing is more accurate for wide-angle lenses (whereas an SLR is more accurate with telephoto lenses).
Rangefinder users also sometimes talk of a “stream of consciousness” approach to shooting. The key to this is that rangefinder viewfinders usually have a greater field of view than the lens in use, with the photographer being able to see what is going on outside of the framelines and therefore better anticipate action. In addition, with viewfinders with magnifications larger than 0.8x photographers can keep both eyes open and effectively see a floating viewfinder frame superimposed on their real world view.
If filters which absorb much light or change the colour of the image are used it is difficult to compose, view. From Wikipedia.
The designer
Me!
Viu is a concept in development, by Henrik Haanes, student of industrial design at The Oslo School of Architecture and Design.
I am a passionate photography enthusiast, who’s currently shooting with a Leica M8 digital rangefinder with a 1979 Summicron 35/2. Beside my studies I’m working as a desk journalist in the norwegian newspaper Vårt Land, and has previosly worked at Fotovideo in Oslo, one of Europe’s largest photography stores. There, I learned that some customers wanted as many megapixels and program modes as possible, whereas some only wanted a compact photographic tool with a decent optical viewfinder. The latter group was hard to accommodate, as in my opinion no such camera exists.
For more info, photographies and other projects, visit henrikhaanes.com