Olympus AS-ME1 Eyecup

1.2 magnification

Strengths: Makes more room for my nose.

Weakness: Minimal improvement.

1.2 magnification is not much to brag about but everything counts. You do tend to loose site of the meter readouts on the right side of the view finder. My nose tends to hit the back side of the camera while viewing so the eyepiece gives me a little more room. For $15 I would consider it a reasonable deal. $50 seems too much. If you are an enthusiast and want to buy a present for your camera it...
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1.2 magnification is not much to brag about but everything counts. You do tend to loose site of the meter readouts on the right side of the view finder. My nose tends to hit the back side of the camera while viewing so the eyepiece gives me a little more room. For $15 I would consider it a reasonable deal. $50 seems too much. If you are an enthusiast and want to buy a present for your camera it is a reasonable purchase. On a practical level you could probably live without it.

By jerryspoor - Aug 24, 2006

Helpful add-on (sort-of)

Strengths: Improves manual focusing.

Weakness: Unable to clearly see data on the viewer sidebar.

I purchased this to help combat the limitations of the Olympus E-500 viewfinder. It does perform its duty of magnifcation, which improves manual focus accuracy; however, this is at the expense of further limiting the field of vision through the finder. This makes it more difficult to see the aperture and exposure data on the sidebar. I had been concerned by other reports that it did not stay on...
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I purchased this to help combat the limitations of the Olympus E-500 viewfinder. It does perform its duty of magnifcation, which improves manual focus accuracy; however, this is at the expense of further limiting the field of vision through the finder. This makes it more difficult to see the aperture and exposure data on the sidebar. I had been concerned by other reports that it did not stay on the camera well, leading to easy loss. I have not personally found this to be the case. It does not lock into place, but seems snug enough that inadvertent loss will hopefully prove unlikely.

By byount - Aug 7, 2006

Easily focus manual lenses on Olympus E

This magnifier makes it much easier to focus a manual lens on the Olympus E cameras. I use Leica-R lenses on my E-510, this helps a lot, especially when trying to focus wide angle lenses.

By JimH on Adorama - Jun 14, 2008

Useful for Canon, too.

Strengths: It works with my Canon EOS 5D, as well as for other cameras besides olympus ones.

Weakness: A little pricy, but it's not bad in the US. In other countries, it's far more expensive.

First of all, you need to understand why you need such a thing. If you think your viewfinder is small, and would like to make it larger, then you are at the right place. This magnifier enlarges the viewfinder by 20%. In other words, it's 120% comparing to the orginal one. If you are using manual focuses, this is probably a must-have thing. People always think bigger is better, however, in some...
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First of all, you need to understand why you need such a thing. If you think your viewfinder is small, and would like to make it larger, then you are at the right place.

This magnifier enlarges the viewfinder by 20%. In other words, it's 120% comparing to the orginal one. If you are using manual focuses, this is probably a must-have thing.

People always think bigger is better, however, in some cases, this might not be always true. As your viewfinder looks big now, your eye placement to the viewfinder is still the same, meaning that you need to roll your eyeballs around to see the full picture. As you can imagine, from viewing the top of the picture, then looking down to the stats you are shooting now requires some time to used to now.

I recommend this magnifier to people, if this is what you need.

By bluejeff - Aug 5, 2007