Comments on: Eyepiece magnifiers for the Alpha DSLRs

By: georges2020

georges2020 — Tue, 27 May 2008 00:50:50 +0000

Seagull has now a 1x-3x angles finder.

By: rroland99

rroland99 — Sat, 24 May 2008 20:34:28 +0000

I also just got one of the Seagull anglefinders (the 1X-2X). In the article you say: “The Seagull incorporates a prism (presumably mirrors not solid glass)”, just wanted to let you know that it is actually glass. There are two little screws that were just screaming at me to release them — when removed the “elbo” cover removes and reveals a nice little shiny glass prism. Great Articles!!!

By: william9

william9 — Sat, 17 May 2008 01:56:44 +0000

David,

Thank you very much for your article on magnifiers for the A300/350. As a result, I purchased a Nikon DK-21M 1.17x OVF magnifier (designed for the Nikon D80, D200, D300). It fits perfectly in place of the eyepiece cup, sliding down snugly on the grooves there. With just the right amount of magnification, I see 100% of what the OVF was showing without it, including all the data at the bottom – but larger by just the right amount larger.

Note: This DK-21M magnifier actually makes it easier for me to use the OVF given that I have strong prescription glasses that the on-camera dioptre can’t adjust for. The regular eyepiece cup made it more difficult to get right up to the OVF.

By: robh-r

robh-r — Thu, 15 May 2008 00:00:14 +0000

David, thanks for the useful article – can you confirm that both items actually fit and work okay on the new A350 (mainly interested in the Seagull)?

btw, I’m interested in this camera because of the angled LCD with live view – I find an LCD is virtually essential for ~30% of my macro shots. However, as i understand it the 2x magnification button for the LCD also crops the image to what you see. I doubt the 1x view will always be good enough to get manual focus. It isn’t on my P&S which has same LCD resolution as the A350 – but with the P&S there is no image cropping when the center of the lcd is magnified.

So, the ability to get precise focus using the 2.5X angle viewfinder may be a great help in some situations.

By: Glyn R

Glyn R — Thu, 08 May 2008 19:40:08 +0000

I have bought one of these Seagull anglefinders. It is a much better product than other cheap items. Before this review I thought I would give a cheap one a try. I bought the cheapest one from China I could find. The quality is very poor, the 1X view has some barrel distortion, when you turn on the 2X magnification you get an extremely barrel distorted view, of the full screen. The centre is useable but the distortion is very distracting. I would be interested in a comparison with the Sony item, at the price it should have a better prism than the Seagull version but how do we find out. I used an Olympus ME-1 finder permanently on my E-330 and E-300 it was a real boon. the 1.2 magification on the small 4/3 screen is tremendous. On my A350 it should be an advantage.

By: admin

admin — Mon, 28 Apr 2008 14:06:06 +0000

Yes, I know that Sony makes a very much more expensive version of the angle finder – the purpose of this to write about the affordable Seagull version. Sony’s eyepiece magnifier is not a full view ocular, it only shows a small section (like the 2.5X of the angle finder) and is for critical focusing, not for restoring the focusing screen view to a larger size more like a full frame SLR.

David

By: RubberDials

RubberDials — Sat, 26 Apr 2008 00:24:08 +0000

David, are you aware that Sony make both a magnifier and an angle finder? Your article seems to imply that neither is available. The magnifier is FDA-M1AM, and the angle finder is FDA-A1AM.