Superzoom w/ Optical Viewfinder?

[DarumaBlue]

Another question, this time helping a family member.

My dad has a pretty terrible point and shoot camera, which is all the more tragic because he used to be an avid photographer in his youth. He went shopping with me the other day and started getting interested in the different models. Sadly, none of them really caught his eye.

- He liked the D3000, entry level type DSLR, but he wants more zoom than those 18-55 kit lenses provide. He liked the 18-105 lens range, but considered a body and the cost of that 18-105 Nikkor lens to be beyond his budget.

- He liked the superzooms too, as a casual camera with higher image quality than his current point and shoot, but he couldn't find a superzoom that had an optical viewfinder. His current P&S is only a large, digital screen, which he hates. THe superzooms he saw in the store had the small viewfinders (where you put your eye) but they were electronic screens inside. Looking at those made it too difficult to tell if the lens was focused correctly.

Are there any superzooms out there with regular optical viewfinders (like the D3000)?

Thanks.

[OsmosisStudios]

Originally Posted by DarumaBlue

Are there any superzooms out there with regular optical viewfinders (like the D3000)?
.

From a technical standpoint, that's impossible.

The viewfinders used in the superzoom cameras are electronic viewfinders (EVF) and are used because they show exactly what the screen shows, which is what the sensor will capture. There's no way to split the optical path.

On an SLR, the viewfinder is showing a reflected direct view through the lens via the pentamirror/pentaprism and the main mirror. What this means is that the light that comes out the viewfinder is exactly the same that comes in.

Because superzooms dont have this mirror arrangement, they cant have the light go to both the sensor (when the mirror is raised) and the viewfinder (when the mirror is lowered).

In short, what youre looking for doesnt exist.

If your father's looking for something with a good viewfinder, unfortunately he's stuck with either EVF of a superzoom or a DSLR (and the budgetary pitfalls that accompany them)

[i speak in math]

why not look at the 18-250mm super zooms from tamron and sigma?