Olympus EE-1 Dot Sight for Cameras with Hot Shoe,Black

Product Information

Don't think of it as a laser... just think of it as a way to point the camera accurately without having to put the camera up to your eye. You spot a small bird with the naked eye. That’s handy, since the big telephoto lens is already on the camera! An experienced photographer immediately points the camera at the right spot and starts shooting. I don’t. I think that I’ve targeted exactly the right place, but all I see through the viewfinder is reeds. No bird. The EE-1 is lightweight (73 g with battery), and designed to mount on the flash shoe of the camera. It folds down to about twice the size of the mini electronic flash included with all high-end Olympus cameras, and uses a cheap CR2032 battery that lasts quite a long time. Unlike the dedicated mini flash, it does not draw power from the camera, which means it can be used on any camera, or even off-camera.

The challenge becomes even greater when you try to photograph a bird in flight (BIF) more or less filling the frame. Photographing a bird in flight with loads of space around it is manageable, but as soon as the bird gets close enough to nearly fill the frame, it really gets difficult—for the camera, the lens and the photographer.As one person already mentioned, you sort of need to hold the camera away from your face, the way a person w/o an EVF would need to use the display. For me, that's uncomfortable and not natural, along with having to put up with the sun's glare. RF style bodies eliminate much of this parallax issues - especially if the mount is made as flush with the top plate of the camera as possible. I identified and positioned the subject under the reticule, then what, the camera/lens is 'wobbly' in my hands. Anything you need a red dot sight for will be far enough away that the focus light is useless. These sights are more for distant objects.

The dot sight worked through all the focal lengths without re-calibration, pretty much as one would expect really, as the lens axis is common for ALL lenses….Dahhhhhh. Good for birds. Most other situations the camera AF is more than good enough. I have not used one but have bought cheap Chinese gunsight versions and made my own mounts. Note that cameras with a middle hump placement for their hot-shoe are not the best type for use with a sight that has parallax issues. Might be ok to fit a flashgun way up there. After six months, unless you can demonstrate that the fault was present at the time of original delivery or we have previously arranged a repair and this has failed to resolve the fault, our liability will be limited to providing you with reasonable support to make a claim under the manufacturer’s warranty, where applicable.An alternative is to calibrate the sight against a target at infinity (or at a high distance), measure the distance between lens axis and sight, which is about 90 mm with the EE-1 on-camera (i.e., about the width of four fingers), then point the circle-and-cross 90 mm above the center of the intended field of view. You will have to evaluate the 90 mm by eye, and with really large and distant subjects you can skip this step and simply center the circle-and-cross onto the subject. 90 mm off-target hardly makes a difference in the picture of a car or a buffalo, for instance. I would appreciate any info on using this for fast birds in flt. Trying to acquire feeding birds such as Swallow-tail Kites with a longer lens is a real challenge. I would like to use, if feasible, on M1 Mk III. The first interesting thing about this product is that it is compatible with any camera featuring a hot-shoe mount.