Live-Preview Digital camera
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A Live-Preview Digital camera (LPD) or more specifically, Conventionally-Generated Live-Preview Digital camera (CGLPD) is a typical digital camera characterized by its continuous and conventionally-generated digital view (live-preview) on an electronic screen such as an LCD or an EVF. Conventionally-generated means that it is generated by means of continuously and directly projecting the image formed by the objective lens over the main sensor, which in turn feeds the electronic screen with a digital preview for framing.
Although LPD is the type of camera that comes in mind first when the phrase "digital camera" is said, the phrase is by no means exclusive to this type given that digital single-lens reflex cameras (dSLRs) and digital rangefinders are also digital cameras. But while the laters can be easily designated with these names which specify both their type and their digitality, LPDs do not have any widely-used specific name, and are usually designated by what they are not rather than what they are, hence expressions like "digital non-SLRs" or "non-dSLR's" are used to designated them. But such expressions are both awkward and non-specific (a "digital non-SLR" is not necessarily an LPD, it might be a digital rangefinder for example). So there is no one specific and commonly used name for them. The name "Live-Preview Digital camera" (and its acronym LPD) is specific and simple but is just a suggested one here in the hope that it will fill the gap (or that a better alternative will replace it here).
LPDs include two different but not so distinct categories: Bridge digital cameras and Compact digital cameras. Bridge cameras in general are more advanced (feature-packed), expensive (higher build quality) and sizable than the compacts.
There exist currently at least four dSLRs with live-preview: (the Canon EOS 20Da, the Olympus E-330, the Panasonic Lumix DMC-L1 and the Leica Digilux 3), but their live-preview is not conventionally-generated and these are clearly dSLRs not LPDs (as in all other dSLRs, there is a reflex system that creates an optical view for framing in the OVF. The live-preview is just an additional bonus feature achieved in different ways from the conventional way of the LPDs).
