It seemed like high time to replace my venerable Canon SD770IS pocket camera so I went shopping among the latest crop of insanely amazing point and shoots. I really wanted three things: HD Video, Great low-light performance and my beloved optical viewfinder—all in a package that can fit in my shirt pocket, limiting the camera to about 4” x 2” x 1” and about 5 ounces (like the Canon SD series). I started my search with the amazing new Canon PowerShot SD1400 IS, but seeing no optical viewfinder I kept looking. Raw capture is a big plus so I was instantly drawn to the Canon Powershot S95. However with slowly growing concern as I trolled through the latest models from Nikon, Canon, then Fuji I was stumped…

None of the new crop of tiny cameras had optical viewfinders! Canon used to have two versions of the SD series (like the 780 & 790) with one having the smaller LCD and a viewfinder and the other having a larger LCD. Clearly the market had spoken and the joy of sharing images on larger LCDs combined with a reluctance to spend money on the extra electronics needed for a working optical viewfinder were the death knell of one of my favorite features.

In fairness to the “arm’s length” style of shooting LCDs are much better and brighter than they used to be. And with super-zooms it is all but impossible to accommodate an optical viewfinder in a tiny package. The advent of image stabilization has also made it a lot easier to get sharp shots while the camera weaves and bobs suspended far out beyond your elbows. But call me a purist or just call me old-fashioned, but I take pictures with the camera up against my eye when I can—for stability and out of habit.

Now I could go to a larger camera like the Canon PowerShot G12 or the Nikon Coolpix P7000 but that defeats the purpose. I’m already lugging around two or three D-SLRs most of the time and the entire purpose of my “shirt-pocket” model is that it is with me even when those aren’t. It never leaves my pocket. Personally I don’t mind only have 10MP in a compact (any higher resolution and the pixels are so small they aren’t capturing much light anyway) and I don’t mind having “only” a 3x or 4x zoom and I don’t mind having a 2.5” LCD (I don’t need to show of my pix while I’m taking them) and I’d give all that up for a good optical viewfinder combined with good low light performance. But clearly I’m in a vanishing minority.

So I’m writing this not just to vent (although that’s always helpful) but to find out whether other folks are in the same boat or even more importantly if anyone has found a current model camera that does what I want. So far the only upgrade I’ve come up with is to move slightly from the now obsoleted SD770IS to the only slightly less obsoleted SD780IS, hardly a quantum leap.

In advance, thank you for any thoughts! Feel free to comment here or in our Camera forum on nikondigital.org