For a mere USD$39.99 plus postage, from Adorama (among other places) the Olympus ME-1 Magnifying Eyecup can be yours. Click and buy one from Adorama now: go on, you know you want one (and you want to help me get my cut!)!

It reputedly magnifies the viewfinder of an E500 by 20 percent. Should this be true, it would represent a noticable improvement, making manual focussing in particular considerably easier, particularly if you also did this, and got into lenses like this!

But does it, and is it useful? There is considerable debate about its merits on forums all round the net. Look here, here, here and here for starters !

The trouble with written opinion however is that they are just that: written! After all, to paraphrase Sean Connery in The Untouchables, you don't want to bring a knife to a gunfight. You want to see what this pretty expensive piece of precision glass does with your own eyes, not read about it!

Here at the highly advanced Gadgetmiser labs, we mulled over how best to reproduce the experience of the human eye pressed against the comforting soft embrace of a plastic eyecup. Hours of experimentation resulted in the final approach of shoving a Casio compact digicam, set on macro, against the viewfinder. Surprisingly, like duct tape on the space shuttle, it worked quite well! Watch this video, which is provided as evidence of the authenticity of the material that follows it and which will also show you how simple the ME1 Eyecup is to install.

Incidentally, you will notice my E500 focus screen has been changed, so it has a split view focussing aid, which I explain how to install here.

You might get a better sense of the actual increase in size from this video:

Or if moving pictures don't do it for you, here is the normal viewscreen side by side against an ME-1 magnified viewscreen. The original pictures were 7 megapixel shots, resized for this page in exactly the same aspect ratios as the original shots, and not otherwise altered in any way. If you can accept my digicam is a good proxy for an eye, this is what you would see.

Here are the same shots enlarged, so you can better assess clarity.

Original

Magnified

You will observe from both the video and stills, that:

• There IS a noticable increase in size. I'd say 20% was about right.
• The exposure information on the right is considerably sharper without the eyecup than with it. The top and bottom edges of the viewfinder are also much better defined before installation of the eyecup than after. There is some "fuzziness"on these horizontal edges after the eyecup is installed.

So, is it worth getting one? You can now decide for yourself! This is what I think:

• The loss of sharpness after installation of the eyecup is due to the fact that you are now viewing a magnified viewfinder through a small lens in the ME1 eyecup, on which your eye must be centered. While the overall picture is larger, your field of view through the eyecup is reduced.
• In practice, I find the viewfinder useful, despite the above. The extra size is worth the shortcomings, particularly if you use manual lenses.. You'll learn to adapt very quickly to keeping your eye centered, and it will become second nature to you. By the way, I wear glasses, and the ME1 works fine for me, even with them on.
• I've found that my percentage of good shots using manual focus lenses has increased, since using the ME1.
• The ME1 works with other DSLRs as well. I have tried it on a Pentax K100D DSLR, and it fit. The "edge fuzziness" however was worse, presumably due to the fact that the Pentax has a larger viewfinder than the E500 to start with. Still, it is useful to know that if you ever get one and change camers, there is a chance it might work with your next one, like with this guy!

Comments? Email me at larry@gadgetmiser.com

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