Patent ID: 8125554

Claim:
A viewfinder, comprising: a display unit including a display surface on which a picture is displayed based on a picture signal supplied from an imaging apparatus; and an eyepiece unit, which is detachably attached to said display unit, configured to enlarge a picture displayed on said display surface to make the picture visually recognizable; said display unit including: a display control unit configured to display said picture on said display surface based on said picture signal, and a detecting unit configured to detect the presence/absence of attachment of said eyepiece unit; and wherein said display control unit is configured to laterally invert a picture to be displayed on said display surface based on the detection of said detecting unit, and to change the brightness of a picture to be displayed on said display surface, when the detecting unit detects presence of attachment of said eyepiece unit, the brightness of the picture to be displayed on said display surface is a first brightness preset by a user of the viewfinder, and when the detecting unit detects absence of attachment of said eyepiece unit, the brightness of the picture to be displayed on said display surface is a second brightness preset by a user of the viewfinder, the first and second brightness levels are preset by the user by operating a pushbutton switch of the display unit to display on the display surface a setting menu screen for performing various settings of the viewfinder including a brightness setting, operating a pushbutton switch of the display unit to display on the display surface a picture brightness setting screen, and operating a pushbutton switch of the display unit to increase/decrease a numeric value indicating the level of brightness, and the first and second brightness levels are used without automatic modification, and the display unit is configured such that the display surface pivots between a first position at which the display surface is viewed when the eyepiece unit is attached to the display unit and a second position at which the display surface is viewed when the eyepiece unit is not attached to the display unit.