A point of view

I was a bit surprised yesterday while taking photos at the Central Coast to find out how unfriendly (read: unuseable) my camera is in some conditions. I bought it because it is small with a 5x optical zoom - but the tradeoff was there was (as is the case with so many other smaller cameras on the market these days) no viewfinder. And it was the lack of viewfinder that was causing the problem. If I was standing in the sun, all I could see in the screen was my reflection. Even holding the camera right up to my face wasn't satisfactory because at that range, the image on the screen was out of focus - or it could just have been that I was squinting too much to be able to see properly. In any case, it wasn't so much as "point and shoot" as "guess, point, shoot and hope" which isn't how I usually like to compose my shots ... either that or make sure I (or at least the camera) was in shade as I lined up the shot (and reviewed it). The answer: those hoods they used to use when photography was just starting up - so the screen is in darkness. Just have to work out a way to fix it to the camera body - and not look like a total goose. Or ... make sure I carry either Chaim or 12, both of which have viewfinders - because you never know when there will be a photo op.