Editing Viewfinder (section)

== Single-lens reflex viewfinders ==
[[File:Hasselblad 1600F.jpg|thumb|Hasselblad]]
[[File:Mamiya 645 1000s AE finder 001.JPG|thumb|Mamiya 645 1000s AE finder]]
[[Single-lens reflex]] (SLR) cameras use the camera lens itself, to completely eliminate [[parallax]], the significant field-of-view error for close subjects caused by the offset distance between the viewfinder's lens and the camera's lens.  Early SLRs were [[Large format (photography)|plate camera]]s, with a mechanism to insert a mirror between the lens and the film which reflected the light upwards, where it could be seen at waist level on a ground glass screen. When ready to take the picture, the mirror was pivoted out of the way (without moving the camera). Later SLR still cameras had a mechanism which flipped the mirror out of the way when the [[shutter (photography)|shutter]] button was pressed, opened and closed the shutter, and then moved the mirror back.  The Zeiss Ikon Contax S was the first SLR camera to allow easy eye-level viewing by using a roof [[pentaprism]] to laterally reverse the inverted camera image (the reflex mirror had already vertically reversed the image).{{cn|date=August 2024}} SLR movie cameras used a [[beamsplitter]] partial mirror to split the camera image between the shutter and film, and the viewfinder.{{cn|date=August 2024}}  A major advantage of SLR viewfinders is that any change of camera lens did not affect the viewing accuracy, and accurate camera focus did not depend on correct linking or calibration.