EX3 style viewfinder eyepiece for EX1

[mlbelanger]

Here's a shot of my EX1 with an EX3 style viewfinder eyepiece I made over the weekend:

http://homepage.mac.com/mlbelanger/external/model_mayhem/ex1.jpg

http://homepage.mac.com/mlbelanger/external/model_mayhem/ex1_viewfinder_eyepiece.jpg

It's built from a Cinetactics ls40 screen hoodie and the viewfinder piece from an old M3 camera.

With the screen hoodie and the M3 eyepiece together, all the distances worked out nearly perfectly. You get a magnified view of the entire LCD with some slight distortion at the edges, but it is SO much easier to shoot and focus, especially in bright light.

Note to the guys at Cinetactics... if you come out with these all of a sudden I expect a cut of the action, or at least some free stuff ;-)

[booth]

Nice, maybe you should approach one of the accessory companies with the idea. I'm sure users of other cameras would benefit too.

[thxdave]

You ought to sell these yourself! It looks great! How long did it take you to assemble it? Are the parts easily available?

[mlbelanger]

Nice, maybe you should approach one of the accessory companies with the idea. I'm sure users of other cameras would benefit too.

Cinetactics would be the logical choice. The hood itself all the way up to the eyepiece is theirs. It works great by itself but is SO much better with the viewfinder. I'll have to send them an email in case they don't check these boards regularly.

[mlbelanger]

You ought to sell these yourself! It looks great! How long did it take you to assemble it? Are the parts easily available?

Building the hood from scratch would be a pain. I happened to have one I used regularly and just added the eyepiece to it. It was dumb luck that everything lined up optically to make the focal distance of the eyepiece work properly.

It took me 30 minutes or so to cobble it together. The structure under the eyepiece is cardboard covered in electrical tape at the moment (only the finest for my EX1. lol) I'll probably come up with something more solid and more easily removable down the road.

The eyepiece is the hard part. It's from a 1980's vintage Sony M3 tube camera. (yes, tubes instead of chips). It seems to be roughly the same as the viewfinder from a 1990s era DXC-3000 so maybe its something of a standard on Sony cameras. I'm sure will all the models of Sonys out there (not to mention other vendors) that something should be availalbe as a replacement part. The problem would be tracking down the right current part. (Sony parts are also not inexpensive)

[Jim Arthurs]

I've been knocking around the idea of building something like this for my own use, but could make molds to produce in production quantity.

It would be a cast black urethane semi-rigid plastic "hood" piece that fits the viewfinder exactly with an in/out adjustable eye tube with a cast soft rubber eyepiece. The key is to have it very light weight so as to not over balance the entire unit.

What would everyone consider a "fair" price for this?

Regards,

Jim Arthurs

[thxdave]

I'd expect to pay somewhere between $50 to $80.

[jwatt@bennett-watt.com]

$500 would be a much fairer price considering the value you're getting. One thing you might consider adding to make it a bit more rugged since the LCD isn't designed for that extra weight would be some sort of support piece going over to the camera handle.

[david_p]

with all of the DIY gear being built these days like 35mm lens adaptors and the like...i sure wish something like this would emerge for the EX-1. i would think it would be useful for a host of other small cameras lcd's as well since most of the natural eyepiece viewers arent that good.

just giving a bump to this thread. anybody beyond the OP got any ideas as to a way to get this done?

thanks
david
www.davidprobst.com

[Lenilenapi]

Hoodman will have one out probably in a month or so, its already on the production line and they say the optics are great. Price around $100

Lenny Levy

[david_p]

Hoodman will have one out probably in a month or so, its already on the production line and they say the optics are great. Price around $100

Lenny Levy

that is exceptional news!!!

thanks for the heads up.

david
www.davidprobst.com

[stevec]

Note a Loupe on the hood burns the LCD when in the sun. I just trashed a 2nd LCD on the EX1, it only takes seconds for this to happen while outside in the sun. A $500.00 mistake.

See this previous blog and what it looks like with a LCD burnt with a loupe on a hood:
http://web.mac.com/stevecahill/Steve_Cahills_Blog/Blog/Entries/2008/7/9_When_Bad_Pixels_Go_Wrong.html

[DCSensui]

[quote=stevec;1378890]Note a Loupe on the hood burns the LCD when in the sun. I just trashed a 2nd LCD on the EX1, it only takes seconds for this to happen while outside in the sun. A $500.00 mistake.

The Canon XL1 had the same problem.

Note that some veteran cameramen have a habit of flipping the eyepiece down on their ENG cameras whenever they step away from it. Probably the same reason.

[danap]

Any suggestion...feasibility, availability, price ?