I was reading in another forum about the new Olympus EE-1 red dot sight, and how some people use RDS's for shooting BIF or motor sports.
I wondered to myself if it would work well for the sports I shoot. I currently have a bad cataract in my right eye (being fixed in November
) which means I can't use the 'two eye' method to keep track the action outside of the viewfinder.
The EE-1 seemed rather expensive as a test at US$129, but I found a Svbony RDS on Amazon for CA$40, and it came with the attachment to mount it to the hot shoe. At that price I thought it'd be worth a try.
Today I got to try it out at a rugby match and was pleasantly surprised. For the test I used my K3 and DA*300mm mounted on a monopod. The AF settings I used were: AF-S, A-9 focus points, focus priority and medium hold. I disabled the AF button and used the half press on the shutter button to focus. I'd track the action and fire off a 4or 5 shot burst when the action seemed intense.
I shot 665 images, and according to 'exiftool' 664 were in focus ! Focus priority obviously works well in AF-S mode. Needless to say not all the images were of what I wanted. The frame on the RDS is approx. four times what you'd see in the viewfinder do I didn't always get the focus in exactly the right place, or the focus would be on someone on the edge of the action.
Next week I'll try it out at a soccer game and see what happens there. So far it seems like a good buy for CA$40.
Fred.