Trouble seeing LCD display in sunshine, any suggestions ?

I am having considerable difficulty seeing the LCD displayon the back
of my Sony in bright sunshine. I am having to take multiple shots at
varying angles guessing that my subject is nicely framed or not cut
off, and still I wind up losing the shot I wanted to take because I
couldn't properly see what the display is showing. The viewfinder is
next to useless for me as well. I am wondering if anyone here has
experienced and solved a similar problem. I am thinking of perhaps
some kind of polarizing tape or film I can put over the LCD that will
help me see it better.

 

An LCD image is already polarized.
I assume you're not wearing polarizing sunglasses!

 

I have been known to improvise a sort of eye-level 'viewing hood' using a
cheap 2" slide viewer; remove the part that holds the slide (some models
have that part easily removable) and use the magnifier and rest of the
gadget to let you view the screen almost like a traditional view-finder,
with most of the glare from sunlight eliminated. Something along the same
lines but made of stiff cardboard and a small magnifying glass might be
neater; experiment ) (My inspiration was the viewing hood of a
roll-film twin-lens reflex camera).

There are a few 'hoods' on the market, which claim to make the LCD screen
easier to use, but I'm not convinced by them and I haven't seen one with a
magnifier built in.

This problem is one that compact digicam makers need to address; it annoys
everyone I know who has ever tried to use such a camera in broad daylight.
An optical viewfinder should help, but on those few compacts so equipped
that I've tried, the optical viewfinder is very small and not very accurate
- and of course you still can't see any of the 'menus' or other
information on the LCD.

 

Thank you, I'll look for some hoods and if failing to find anything
suitable I'll improvise. Thanks again.

 

My wife bought me an original Canon ZR camcorder 8 or 9 years ago. It
came with a clip-on hood with adjustable magnifying eyepiece to convert
the LCD screen into an optical viewfinder. Very useful it was too in
bright sunlight. Unfortunately the camera no longer works reliably, and
I recently bought a ZR700 at a fifth of the price ($400 vs $2000).

It would be nice if P&S camera manufacturers provided such a feature.

 

They could, but if they did the product wouldn't be cheap enough for
enough people to buy enough of them to make enough money on the first
10K production units. Considering the cheapness of a significant
portion of the P&S market, producing a better product doesn't translate
to making money. Hence, most P&S products are considered disposable by
the manufacturer, and the consumer will eventually agree when they see a
repair estimate for their broken LCD hood, rendering the product almost
as useless as it already is. IOW, it's a marketing snake that eats it's
own tail.

 

You might want to look at these -- I haven't yet, but will next week.
Courtesy of PC World July 2007, page 140.

http://www.delkin.com/products/popupshades/index.html

Miles

 

That's really helpful. Thank you

 

I may be a bit late entering this thread, but I have seen LCD Scrree
Protectors on Ebay. They come from China although you can order throug
an Irish seller. One was priced at about £6.50 inc. p. & p