When I ordered the Katz Eye screen I thought I would order a Pentax O-ME53 magnifying eyecup as well. I really haven’t had a chance to give it a thorough test until today. I thought I would share my experience with it.
Personally, I did not notice a significant magnification when I installed it. (18% is the actual amount of magnification) I didn’t have one of those “WOW!” moments where I just knew this was going to be useful.
What disappointed me though was the fact that the eyecup reduces the viewfinder coverage, including the exposure information in the bottom of the screen. I have to rotate my view to see it. This of course is the tradeoff for more magnification.
My opinion: I personally don’t like the eyecup. I don’t like gaining a bit of magnification at the expense of losing the viewfinder coverage. I think I will be returning it for credit.
Pictures:
I thought I would use the technique I did with the Katz tests for this test. P&S camera shot through the viewfinder. Zoom was held constant on the P&S camera between tests. The complete set is here:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/arena5/sets/72157612680289496/detail/
Here is the viewfinder. It is well made, with a soft rubber eyecup:
This is the subject of the test taken with the k20d:
The view through the standard viewfinder:
View through the O-ME53 (note the cropping in the corners and loss of the exposure info) You can also see the slight magnification over the previous view.
View through the O-ME53 with the camera rotated to be able to see the exposure info (looks just like this with my eye)
I hope this is helpful to anyone considering the eyecup.
Last edited by PentaxPoke; 01-17-2009 at 10:47 AM.