With these small lcd screen cameras, you have to hold them up away from your face to take a picture, and that presents 2 disadvantages to kayakers - camera shake and hard to see what's on the screen. With a viewfinder, the camera contacts your eyebrow, which stabilizes it, and the viewfinder blocks light so you can see what you're taking a picture of. Image stabilization works for small movement, like the amount of shake caused by your heart beat, but for large swings you get when kayaking, the in camera stabilization is not very effective. I made a viewfinder for my waterproof Pentax Optio W9, which reduces camera shake and blocks ambient light so you can see the image on the lcd. I used a cheap plastic loupe from Ritz Camera, made a foam spacer to locate it the right distance from the lcd, and taped it on with electrician's tape. I did remove one of the lenses from the loupe to reduce the magnification from 10 to 5X. I have to be careful not to knock it off when stowing the camera in the PFD pocket, but it's a big improvement over attempting to keep everything steady while holding the camera out and trying to see the LCD screen.