DSLR owners;What's your LCD preview like?

[shiato storm]

I'm a little concerned, the image preview on my 20D is, quite honestly, pants. utterly hopeless in fact. if I zoom in to check the sharpness of an image it just gets worse and worse... not entirely sure why its so bad but its bugging me, surely the point of having a preview screen is to check focus/sharpness and things like that? cause otherwise using just a 1.8" preview screen is pretty pathetic to check things with...whats it like with you other dSLR owners? is the image you have clean and 'zoom-in-able' whilst retaining quality?
is it just mine or does it happen on yours?

[hoodmeister]

Just looking at the preview gives a fairly good idea of a shot on mine (D70)... Then it's quick n' easy to zoom in and check sharpness / focus. It's a bit slower on vertical shots...

You can't zoom right in... But you can easily to be able to tell if an image isn't sharp / is a bit iffy / is sharp / is very sharp / is super sharp...

What's more useful though (I find) is the ability to also quickly check the histogram / highlights of an image (highlights is VERY useful) with the preview screen. And the EXIF in detail, too...

Generally browsing images is very fast, too...

So, uhhh, the basic answer is... I love my preview screen.

[Stoo]

I think this might be a lacking on some canon models as mine's not great on my 300D either.. In fact, what looks sharp on the LCD can actually be fairly fuzzy on the full image, which is really annoying when you think you've got a cracking shot, only to find out it's junk when you get back..

I've since taken to getting twice as many shots as I think I need in order to really nail a picture in a sort of scattergun approach..

[divinemadness]

What he said ^^

D70 Preview is great, can zoom far enough in enough detail to check sharpness, then left and right overlay histograms, highlights, EXIF...

Tis 'da bomb'

[shiato storm]

hmmm...could be canon preview/review sucks. not that happy with mine on the 20d, how can you check focus if the image deteriorates so rapidly when you zoom in? stupid really.
also think I'm having probs with distance shots too...coming up fuzzy on computer (not camera shake), really odd actually. even with high DOF getting some odd results. and on all lenses which isn't good, got good results on slide with my 1N but would expect as good as/better results from a newer focus system as it is in the 20D...oh well, more testing required!!

[menthel]

The one on my 300d is only really any use for making sure that you got everything in the shot that you wanted too. Relatives tend to get miffed when you miss important things like heads etc.

[shiato storm]

Relatives tend to get miffed when you miss important things like heads etc.

you could explain they're relative relatives...so it shouldn't mater how much/little of them you do catch...

[Funkstar]

i pretty much only use the preview for making sue i didn't horribly under or over expose a shot, but i *think* the preview stays sharp when you zoom in on my 350d

[noah]

id have said the opposite to the others, i think the d70 screen is pap for telling real sharpness and focus, ive got home from a day shooting surf and found half the pics i thiought were good were infact out of focus. of course it is very handy for previews of timing in sports shots and as hoodi said the histogram is a great tool.

[Funkstar]

tested mine out to make sure, it does zoom in properly with both RAW and jpeg

[shiato storm]

yeah, its weird. I got much better results with the 350D I used the other month than I'm getting at the moment. though I suspect the 350 being newer canon fixed the review screen to remain sharp all the way through zooming in, the 20D doesn't. which does kind of annoy me cause, as already noted, after a day of shooting you'd think 'yeah, some good shots' get home and they're crap. now, if you'd be able to zoom in on the LCD properly you could see which ones are rubbish and which ones are ok, so you can decide there and then whether you need to take a few more images or not.
It weird but I get the feeling I could handhold the 350d at low shutter speeds but the 20d is harder. i can't work it out, normally a chunkier object in the hand is easier to hold steady, at least the balance is much better on the 20.