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

Product Information

Well, my dot sight has arrived and I just spent some time setting it up. I found that I CAN use it with the camera pressed to my face. It might be because I also have the EP-13 large eyecup for my EVF, which puts around 2 inches of space between the EE-1 and my eye.

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. I tend to be a bit wobbly when I shoot, so I keep the camera on a loose tripod during shooting. I find it useful to open the LCD so I can aim the RDS at the target and then see it in the LCD in my peripheral vision, rather than relying totally on the RDS.

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. My perspective is definitely "old school" - a few years before the Oly sight existed. Anyhow, here we go. I head to airshows now & again and enjoy capturing these "large metal birds" in flight. I first found out about this type of framing by virtue of the Kontur type of viewfinder marketed by Voigtlander in the 1950's for use on Rangefinder-style film bodies.

Avoid touching the sight afterwards, just to make sure you do not disturb its alignment. With a 300 mm lens, there is little margin for sloppiness. If you are in a hurry, you can begin a session by mounting the sight on the camera and trusting that the alignment used in the previous session is still good enough. If you have time, however, it is not a bad idea to confirm this with a test shot. It worked quite well, although framing was imprecise at times, moving my eye slightly moved the reticule relative to the subject a little.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. It does aim the camera at your target, if that's what you mean by "pin point." But it doesn't focus for you. The minimum distance for achieving this is a learning process, too close and it is accurate, framing and AF positioning is off. I have a couple,of laser dot sights from my long ago days as a competitive - not very good - .22 pistol target shooter. I mounted a simple, cheap laser dot sight since my old eyes couldn't see the built-in metal "iron" sights and it worked prety well.

It suffers from parallax (unsurprisingly), so the dot and the photo centre line up at one distance and move apart closer/further. My approach was to calibrate at the distance I expected stuff to happen at and aim a little high/low for stuff at different distances. This is mostly an issue with long lenses with small FoVs. The EE-1 seems like a very simple object to use at first glance but it needs to be configured and that requires some trial and error.Overall, holding your camera 10" away from your face isn't a great position to use. If your camera has a viewfinder it's best to use it, especially from an ergonomic standpoint. Keep the live view on the LCD screen activated so that you can see your composition better. Adjust your camera’s position until you see that reference point in the middle of the LCD screen. Now look at the EE-1 and move the red dot until it sits on the same reference point as the centre of your composition. It is important that you remain in the same position while performing the whole operation so that your view of the LCD screen and Red Dot Sight doesn’t change much. Now everything you point the Dot Sight at should appear at the centre of your image. You will need to calibrate it (line up the dot with the center of your image) based on your lens (and focal length, if a zoom lens, I think...). You can then set a single AF point in the center of your image as well, so the camera will auto-focus on whatever the red dot is on when you press the shutter release. it's important for me to 'get a certain feeling' (muscle memory) of the position which I hold the lens/camera while using the EE1...and calibrate the EE1 to the center AF point for that position. 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.