Why Can't Nikon or Canon....?

American Bison; Custer State Park, South Dakota, USA (click to enlarge)

Why can't Nikon or Canon, or every manufacturer of digital SLRs with optical viewfinders,
add a "heads up" display to those viewfinders?  Why can't Canon or Nikon project a histogram onto the viewfinder, or even below the viewfinder, as we have in mirrorless cameras?  I bet Sony could figure it out pretty quickly!  They seem to be the big innovators in the photographic world today.

I had a 'heads up' display on the windshield of my Corvette 15 years ago!  It displayed my speed as well as other data.  In fact, the new ones give the driver a choice of what to display. Certainly, the technology exists to provide a feature like this for digital SLR camera bodies.  The bodies are sure big enough.  You might be able to fit a turkey sandwich in there also, as big as the bodies have become.

In fact, taking it a step further, with the sophistication of electronics and the miniaturization of computer chips, I believe that several features could be provided which would allow the photographer to decide which he or she wanted projected and then personalize the display for their specific needs.  One could change it for differing types of photography or differing circumstances.

What am I missing here?  Why can't they add customizable data, in the form of a 'heads up' display to project into the frame of digital SLR cameras?  Is it that they can't economically provide for it?  Is it that there has been no demand for anything of the sort or is it that they can but choose not to?

Thanks for looking.  Enjoy!

Dennis Mook

Many of my images can be found at www.dennismook.com.  Please pay it a visit.  I add new images regularly.  Thank you.


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