I saw one of these on Amazon a few years ago, but could not afford one. I bodged one using a flash adapter and some ground down feeler gauge sections. The flash adapter tolerances were poor, so twisted in the flash mount. It was okay, but I found a mechanical sight actually better than the red dot sight, because of a daylight contrast issue. I muddle through with both eyes open now and foul language. Now if I could just perfect my time displacement and pause device photography would be a cynch.
Thank you for the straight forward review and tutorial. If you always use the same lens/camera combination, do you need to calibrate it every time you're out on location? Thanks.
Thanks, Mike. I wonder, when you are photographing birds in flight, how you get a good exposure for the bird and the sky. When I shoot, either the sky is exposed correctly and the bird is too dark or the bird is exposed correctly and the sky is burnt out. Do you adjust exposure when shooting or post process?
Hi Ray, In an ideal situation I wait for the right light. Sun behind me and the bird against a blue sky. If it flies in front of a cloud I stop shooting until it has blue sky behind again. My exposure will be fine against a blue sky. If it is a grey day maybe I do something other than flight shots. If I have to I manually expose and there are times when a white sky works, but not so often. My post production is minimal.
In difficult lighting conditions, I expose to the bird, and give up on sky, as the bird is the subject I want maximum detail. You can if you choose, work the blown out sky in post to get something close to what you saw on the day it was shot. Perhaps taking a blank sky from the same day, properly exposed and adding it in post. Not much more you can do. Too dark a bird pulled from the shadows and noise develops and softens your shot of it. It’s always seems the conundrum of the best shot of the day of your BIF is the one with the most difficult lighting issues, Murphy’s law...
It will work on any camera with a hot shoe on top, which is most. However, it is hard to hand hold a heavy camera in the position it is normally used in. The Olympus 300mm is very small and light. A Canon 300 f2.8 held at arms length from your face would defeat most people.
@@MikeLaneFRPS Does it have to be held at arms length Mike? Does that make it more accurate compared to holding it nearer to your eye (which I would find more comfortable).
@@Bassbarbie Yes it has to be about 10 inches from your eye or you can't view it. It is not an electronic viewfinder, more like looking at an LCD screen which needs viewing from further back.
When you calibrate the dot sight with a zoom lens do you zoom in or zoom out to calibrate it. Does having the aperture wide open or stopped down effect the calibration?
What is the distance from the bottom of the sight to the base of the hot shoe? I have a feeling it's not going to work with my 600mm f/4 lens especially with the hood on. Doing rough measurements, it looks like I'd need it to be 23mm (+/- a mm or two) above the hot shoe for a clear sight over the hood.
Since blackout free viewfinders I have had no need of the EE-1 and sold it so can't measure it. Impossible to use it with a 600mm f4. You have to hold the lens about 25cm in front of you so arms are outstretched. Even the strongest of us would struggle to do that for more than a few seconds.
@@MikeLaneFRPS Hahah - I was shooting barn swallows with it handheld the other day (not with the dot sight). Today I received a dot sight designed for a rifle, but it came with a hot shoe adapter. This time I was using it with my 2x extender, so 1200mm f/8 lens. I don't handhold this rig. I use it only on a tripod. BTW, I find the instructions available online for calibrating these dot sights to be wrong. Because of the parallax between the center of the lens and the sight, the calibration point should be that distance above the focus point. Say I have a bulls eye target at 50 yards away with center point focus sensor dead on the bulls eye. I should move the dot to above the bulls eye by the distance from the center of the lens to the center of the dot sight. Then when I use it, I point the camera so that the dot is that same distance above my target. This will work for any distance but requires estimating the size of the target. If you calibrate it so that the dot exactly covers the intended target, then the calibration works only for that exact distance. Closer subjects will have the camera pointing too far down. Farther subjects will have the camera pointing too far up.
I am a little confused. I am thinking of buying one of these. I saw another video where it said to put the focus point in the centre of the frame and line the red dot up with that. Your advice seems quite different. Will either work please
I maybe missing something in your question, but that is exactly what I do in the film. I put the centre focus point on the birds eye in the camera viewfinder and then adjust the Dot sight so it also lines up with the birds eye.
The part that really confuses me with the red dot sight is just how do you ensure you are in focus? I've never owned a camera that is so good at AF tracking a fast moving bird that I don't even need to look through the viewfinder. I feel like if I used one of these I'd have a ton of out of focus shots of really well framed birds. ;) (Currently on a Z7II)
With the latest gerneration of camera focus is almost certain so long as the bird is in the frame. We just need a tripod head that twists and turns automatically to follow the bird and then we can just sit back and admire the great pictures we take!
@@MikeLaneFRPS I'm on a brand new Z7II and it constantly has no clue in terms of bird focusing. Often even a static bird on a branch in animal autofocus mode and it will be busy trying to focus on a tree 20 feet behind the bird. I guess it depends on camera body. (Though I expected more from a $4000 camera) I've managed to get pretty good at tricking the camera into getting focus on a bird but w/o looking through the viewfinder I feel like it would miss almost every shot.
Hi I have totally lost you when you're putting the darts on the eye when I get the Square on the eye nothing happens. I will continue to turn the dials on the side but I know do not see any little red dot anywhere. What am I missing here?
Assuming it is not broken, the battery is not flat and it is switched on it is hard to miss the red dot. Unless you are not looking into it at the correct angle.
No no, the Oly Dot sight is cheaply made of plastic and it does not mount correctly. means, everytime you mount it on the hotshoe, it will be of target. Additionally the dials are oddly positioned, so you might misadjaust it just my tightening the hotshoe screw. Solution, buy a different brand with bettter quality, I wouldn´t buy it again.
