Site Supporter Registered: November, 2012 Location: North Wales Posts: 2,869
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| | Review Date: July 3, 2015 | Recommended | Price: $20.00
| Rating: 7 |
| Pros: | optically decent, full set of adapters, very wide range diopter adjustment | | Cons: | visible iq fall off edges and corners, fiddly to mount and use, misleadingly zoom is also diopter adjust and depending on your eyes you may not realise full range zoom., | |
I saw an opportunity to pick up one of these s/h and availed myself of it to check out and compare with the tenpa 1.36x I am currently using. It comes in a nice box with shaped foam insert and spaces for all the bits. Mounting does not require any tools but is a little fiddly, the plastic bracket requires a firm, careful push and screwing in requires care, the plastic thread is easily chewed up. Then that shim with the square edges is reversed threaded and intended to lock it on but its an effort to stop the whole thing rotating.
With the magnifier on I then spent some time fiddling with the zoom and the diopter adjustment on the camera. I realised after a while that the zoom on the magnifier is also the diopter adjust, it only has the one movement. This means that 1. you can't use this to easily zoom in /out, any change in the zoom requires a refocus using the on camera diopter adjust (so any notion of a zoom-in-to-nail-the-focus is a bust, and in fact the most noticeable effect of zooming in was the increase in the vignetting); 2. like me you may find that you can't realise the full zoom range. I lose focus towards the high end of the zoom. In practice most users will get this set at a best compromise position somwhere in the middle of its zoom range and leave it on that. And that's ok and probably the best way to go, but it's easily knocked out of focus, particularly if you are using the large rubber eyeshade. Quickly reset of course but still!
In use it worked quite well, noticeably slimmer profile than the tenpa, similar magnification on the setting I got it to and comparable performance, though I am inclined to favour the tenpa slightly for sharpness.
In the end the tenpa is back on the camera and I will probably sell this on, or pass it on to canon users in the family. However its a decent enough item and very good value at the typical prices online this type of magnifier can be obtained for. And there is one other point that could be the deal maker for some: the wide diopter adjustment range this allows could be the answer to some users prayers: those who need (a lot) more than the on camera diopter adjustment.
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