venchka said:
I own VI-T bodies. I've never held/used either the P or 7. However, one feature of the VI-T which may/may not have moved forward to the P & 7 is the rangefinder magnifier. This feature aids with focusing longer (85-100-135) lenses. The VI-T also has a system for automatic parallax correction with the correct viewfinders. I have one of these viewfinders for my 135mm lens and it works! I'm not sure if thissystem made it into the P or 7.
Neither the three-position viewfinder (including the RF magnifier) nor the auto parallax correcting accessory shoe appears on either the P or the 7 series.
One could argue that the 7-series didn't need them, since its RF base length is longer (providing better focusing accuracy without the magnifier) and it has built-in framelines for every lens that really needs parallax compensation (35, 50, 85/100, and 135.) With anything longer than a 135, you're using the "Mirror Box 2" reflex housing, so no parallax compensation required... and with anything wider than 35, the accessory viewfinders aren't super-accurate to begin with, so parallax compensation is of dubious use.
The P was basically a stripped-down econo version of the VI-L, the VI-T's near-twin which differed mainly in having a thumb lever rather than trigger wind. To hold down the P's cost, they omitted the three-position finder: it's strictly a non-adjustable 1:1 view like the VI's 50/100mm view, with an additional, barely-visible 35mm line squeezed in around the outside. They also deleted the parallax compensation pin in the accessory shoe. Most people don't miss the pin, and either make do with the hard-to-see 35mm frame or ignore it entirely. The omission of these two features does give the P a spare, uncluttered quality that's very appealling -- but if you want them, you can get them by hunting around for a VI-L, which is very similar in appearance and operation but has the switchable finder and pin. And of course the VI-T is just the same except for winding via the trigger rather than thumb lever.
One quirk about all this finder-swapping is that the VI cameras do NOT offer parallax compensation for the 35mm lens -- when you switch the finder to the 35mm position, you get a less-magnified image with no frameline. It's easier to see to the edges than the P's 35mm frame, but you lose both the 1:1 finder view and the parallax-compensated frameline. The P's 35mm frameline is hard to see, but at least you've got one, and it does move to compensate for parallax.
On the other hand, the other thing you give up with the P is the "Mg" magnifying position, which really does enhance the focusing accuracy of the short-base rangefinder. Switch a VI-T or VI-L to the "Mg" position, slip the appropriate Lumi-field accessory finder into the auto-parallax-compensating shoe, and you've got a rig that has no problems with accurate focusing of the 85/1.5, 100/2, or 135/3.5 lenses (although you can't follow-focus action subjects because you have to switch your eye between the rangefinder eyepiece and the viewfinder eyepiece.)
All this cleverly-engineered semi-inconvenience was pretty darn sophisticated by early-1950s standards, but after the Leica M3 came out in 1954, it was obvious the playing field had changed and that photographers were going to expect future Canons to let them focus accurately with a wide range of lenses while offering the convenience of parallax compensation and avoiding the INconvenience of using accessory viewfinders! Hence the 7, which solved the focusing-accuracy issue by lengthening the RF base, while solving the parallax-compensation and follow-focus issues by providing a very comprehensive set of framelines.
(Canon evidently was so convinced that photographers were sick of accessory viewfinders that they didn't even provide a shoe for them on the 7... an omission they later corrected on the 7s.)
