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Consider the LCD, with us since the first
digital camera. Tiny, wonderful window that makes our cameras a
combination Linhof-Leica. Excellent composition-focus device
except for broad daylight!
Ever since the first murky shadows appeared in
the Casio LCD, digital photographers have cursed the fact that
bright sunshine and the glass coatings of LCD equal invisible.
I have castigated manufacturers in reviews for
designing cameras with only an LCD. The early Agfas and Casios
were particular offenders. And I've wondered many times why some
manufacturer couldn't design a Rollei-like hood that pops up at
the flick of a fingernail.
When I bought my first Nikon CP950, the search
for a hood was one. First came a home-built one from a Jergen's
baby powder plastic jar.
With its ends cut out, the magnifying lens of an
inexpensive loupe taped in one end, and the entire works wrapped
in plastic tape, this jerry-rigged contrivance worked just fine
with my telephoto adapter in place. When the lens was in focus,
the grain of the LCD popped out.
Next, I applied a liberal coat of black masking
tape to a more expensive Horizon 4X loupe. Like its predecessor,
it required a spare hand to cover the LCD but was sturdy enough
to stuff into a pocket. The focusing eyepiece made diopter
adjustment possible.
Then I heard about Hoodman
http://www.hoodmanusa.com
! These guys are great, creating hoods for every conceivable
device including my Nikon 990! At $19.95, the price was right
(although not as cheap as the Jergen's) and the hood was light
and portable. It slipped onto my 990 with an elastic strap and
could fold up into a pocket.
But to be truly effective, I had to put my eye
up to the hood to block out the light and without a focusing
lens, the hood is as useless as none at all.
The latest find in my search for the perfect
viewer comes from Bob Schwartzman of Technical Innovations. The
OPT-X is a simple bellows with focusing eyepiece that attaches
to your digital camera by means of a base that screws into the
tripod mount. The rig is adjustable to fine tune the fit to the
camera's LCD. I found it just barely cleared the bottom menu
buttons and prevented changing batteries without removing the
viewer. No big deal.
In use, the bellows can extend to nearly four
inches to provide a sort of diopter adjustment for the user's
eye. The fairly stiff bellows stays in place during use. The Pro
model includes a tripod mount screw drilled and tapped so that
the rig can be used on a tripod.
The OPT-X is a first-class accessory for Nikon
900 series, Olympus 2030-3040, Canon G-1, Kodak 4800 and Sony
75. In addition, Bob says he can build an OPT-X for any digital
camera, providing the owner will ship him the camera for a few
days. |