[crewl1]

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I'm getting kind of lost here looking back through the thread for these specific items. It seems you've filtered everything out and found the best to use on our Q's. Would you mind listing or linking the exact items you ordered? I want to get this setup on its way along with an LCD viewfinder so I am ready to shoot when the weather breaks (3 more months yet!!).

The mount is Photosolve Home > Products > Xtend-a-Sight

The Sight is pentax RD10| B&H Photo Video

B&H usually has to order to get them. If you want one right away you can go ebay Pentax Gameseeker RD10 Red Dot Sight 89701 | eBay

[stormtech]

The mount is Photosolve Home > Products > Xtend-a-Sight

The Sight is pentax RD10| B&H Photo Video

B&H usually has to order to get them. If you want one right away you can go ebay Pentax Gameseeker RD10 Red Dot Sight 89701 | eBay

Thanks Larry - I've written it all down now so I have it to go shopping. I haven't had much problem locating my subjects yet, but I have only been shooting from inside to static objects in testing. I'm sure when spring comes and I am outside after that freakin'' Kingfisher this will be a necessity!

[jpzk]

Anyone here lives right up there at the Maine - Québec border ??

JP

[snostorm]

I'm sure when spring comes and I am outside after that freakin'' Kingfisher this will be a necessity!

Hi Stan.

I'm sure it won't stand a chance!!!

Scott

[LaurenOE]

I just got my Xtend-A-Sight plus and it fits Pentax shoes PERFECTLY!!!
I guess whatever they changed, it worked out for us!

[barondla]

I just got my Xtend-A-Sight plus and it fits Pentax shoes PERFECTLY!!!
I guess whatever they changed, it worked out for us!

Great news. Mine is so loose in the shoe that you can twist sight enough to put "center" at left or right edge of field of scope. Sigh. Have to work on that or just buy a new xtend a sight.
Enjoy the red dot. It makes all the difference with the DA*300.
thanks
barondla

[crewl1]

Great news. Mine is so loose in the shoe that you can twist sight enough to put "center" at left or right edge of field of scope. Sigh. Have to work on that or just buy a new xtend a sight.
Enjoy the red dot. It makes all the difference with the DA*300.
thanks
barondla

Mine is like Barondla's. I've figured out that I have to install it then push it to one side before I lock it to keep my aiming settings.
Good to hear yours is a better fit Lauren.

[LaurenOE]

Wow, I guess the first generation X-Tenda Sight was pretty bad
Maybe I have a fluke.

I will say, that I can make one of these pretty easy on my metal mill now that I have one in my hands and I can get measurements from it.

However, I don't have the ability to anodize it, and the price for a new one is still worth it instead of making one.

I have a manual metal mill, so it takes time to get everything right.

[flylow7f39]

Mine is like Barondla's. I've figured out that I have to install it then push it to one side before I lock it to keep my aiming settings.
Good to hear yours is a better fit Lauren.

Thinking back several years ago the first original version I bought was not quite right, can't recall the issue. I emailed the next day after I received it and told him about the problem and he replaced it with one that was fine...

If there is an issue with your mount it might be worthwhile to contact him.

Read his policy page: Home > Policies

[photosolve]

Hello everyone,
I'm Phil Williams, and I'm the owner at photosolve. One of my customers indicated that there was some discussion regarding the Xtend-a-Sight that I might wish to participate in, and he was right! I'd like to let everyone know that it's my continued goal to improve and refine every product I design and sell. The Xtend-a-Sight has gone through several iterations and design changes. My machinist and I go through hours of discussion to try and make things that just work. Mounting to a hot shoe is, for things like a flash, no big deal because a little slop is not that important. The Xtend-a-Sight presented a little more of a challenge, as it had to maintain position fairly well. The first design involved the creation of a slot that could be expanded to tighten in the shoe. While this worked for some, others had difficulty with it. What we realized early on is that the Camera Manufacturers all agreed to a standard of flash shoe manufacture/design but they don't follow it, even within their own manufacturing lines. Different models have different sizing, and this made it difficult to come up with a fixed shoe size that would work everywhere. The second design involved an locking knob, and this worked, but the shoe size was still a problem. Finally, I upgraded the foot by widening it, and changing the knob material. The wider foot requires that a small group of folks grind the sides of the foot just slightly to fit. Most report that it fits snugly. I want you all to be successful, so please, contact me, and let me know your issues, and I will work with you to get it right. Thanks. phil at photosolve dot com

[VisualDarkness]

I've sent mail's to Swedish stores but the Pentax red dots you guys use seem to be impossible to get here. Though I got one mail back for a similar product from Konus. What do you guys think? Konus Pro Optical & Sports Systems
Sadly I get to pay about the double or more of the American Pentax Red Dot sight, but what to do about it?

[crewl1]

Hello everyone,
I'm Phil Williams, and I'm the owner at photosolve. One of my customers indicated that there was some discussion regarding the Xtend-a-Sight that I might wish to participate in, and he was right! I'd like to let everyone know that it's my continued goal to improve and refine every product I design and sell. The Xtend-a-Sight has gone through several iterations and design changes. My machinist and I go through hours of discussion to try and make things that just work. Mounting to a hot shoe is, for things like a flash, no big deal because a little slop is not that important. The Xtend-a-Sight presented a little more of a challenge, as it had to maintain position fairly well. The first design involved the creation of a slot that could be expanded to tighten in the shoe. While this worked for some, others had difficulty with it. What we realized early on is that the Camera Manufacturers all agreed to a standard of flash shoe manufacture/design but they don't follow it, even within their own manufacturing lines. Different models have different sizing, and this made it difficult to come up with a fixed shoe size that would work everywhere. The second design involved an locking knob, and this worked, but the shoe size was still a problem. Finally, I upgraded the foot by widening it, and changing the knob material. The wider foot requires that a small group of folks grind the sides of the foot just slightly to fit. Most report that it fits snugly. I want you all to be successful, so please, contact me, and let me know your issues, and I will work with you to get it right. Thanks. phil at photosolve dot com

Thanks for your post Phil, it's great to see a manufacturer follow up. I will send you a note via email. Larry

[snostorm]

Hello everyone,
I'm Phil Williams, and I'm the owner at photosolve. One of my customers indicated that there was some discussion regarding the Xtend-a-Sight that I might wish to participate in, and he was right! I'd like to let everyone know that it's my continued goal to improve and refine every product I design and sell. The Xtend-a-Sight has gone through several iterations and design changes. My machinist and I go through hours of discussion to try and make things that just work. Mounting to a hot shoe is, for things like a flash, no big deal because a little slop is not that important. The Xtend-a-Sight presented a little more of a challenge, as it had to maintain position fairly well. The first design involved the creation of a slot that could be expanded to tighten in the shoe. While this worked for some, others had difficulty with it. What we realized early on is that the Camera Manufacturers all agreed to a standard of flash shoe manufacture/design but they don't follow it, even within their own manufacturing lines. Different models have different sizing, and this made it difficult to come up with a fixed shoe size that would work everywhere. The second design involved an locking knob, and this worked, but the shoe size was still a problem. Finally, I upgraded the foot by widening it, and changing the knob material. The wider foot requires that a small group of folks grind the sides of the foot just slightly to fit. Most report that it fits snugly. I want you all to be successful, so please, contact me, and let me know your issues, and I will work with you to get it right. Thanks. phil at photosolve dot com

Hi Phil,

Thanks for offering such a unique device for photographers -- and taking the time to come here to explain the challenges to designing such a device and offering to try to work with us to solve our individual problems. The extreme telephoto potential for the Q with SLR lenses produces a need for such a device since we are really pushing into rarely encountered territory when it comes to FL equivalence (up to multiple thousands of mm) in photography since the Q makes this affordable for a much wider spectrum of photographers.

One thing that could be considered is the possibility of adding more clearance to the underside of the forward portion of the mount rail since with the Q, the flash shoe is considerably lower in relation to the lenses mounted to the camera than on most super zoom compacts and DSLRs (because of the optical or electronic viewfinder humps in those cameras). I'm including a couple of photos to give you an idea of what I'm talking about. In this particular application, the mount barely clears the tripod ring at the front.





Sorry for the rubber band that partially obscures the view of the Xtend-a-Sight. It's an original model that I've been using for years (I'm a birder that shoots very long most of the time). These shots were taken a while ago to give people an idea of what my setup looked like, not to illustrate the clearance. In this case, the tripod ring is mounted on the lens about as far back as possible, so it's just barely forward of the point where the lens mounts to the adapter.

There are other applications where this ring could be located further back, actually on the lens adapter instead of the lens, and where the tripod ring is thicker than the one used here. -- we have to adapt a lot of gear that was not really designed to be used as we need to use it. One of these uses a larger diameter tripod ring that fits around a larger diameter lens adapter at the position of the grooved area directly behind the tripod ring in these pics.

I don't think that thinning the front of the mount would adversely effect it's strength, but I realize that it would add at least one additional step in the manufacture of this item.

An alternative would be to offer a shoe extender that had a foot to mount in the flash shoe with another shoe on the top to mount the Xtend-a-Sight to. I've been looking for a while, and have not found anything like this available, which I can understand because there would be no real reason to raise a flash gun 1/2" on a camera. While I'm thinking about it -- perhaps a solution would be to make an adapter like this specifically for the Q with a foot that's designed to fit its shoe correctly and a spacer to relocate the shoe higher by perhaps 1/2" or a bit more.

Again, thanks for your consideration for our applications.

Scott

[post_eos]

An alternative would be to offer a shoe extender that had a foot to mount in the flash shoe with another shoe on the top to mount the Xtend-a-Sight to. I've been looking for a while, and have not found anything like this available, which I can understand because there would be no real reason to raise a flash gun 1/2" on a camera. While I'm thinking about it -- perhaps a solution would be to make an adapter like this specifically for the Q with a foot that's designed to fit its shoe correctly and a spacer to relocate the shoe higher by perhaps 1/2" or a bit more.

I have a couple adapters for using PC cords on shoe mounted flashes. They raise the flash up. One that I have raises it about 1/2 inch, the other about an inch. Here's a link to one on fleabay: Flash Hot Shoe PC Sync Cord Socket Adapter for Camera | eBay.

[konraDarnok]

Just wanted to get in on this