Average Reviews:
(More customer reviews)Canon seems to have designed the standard eye piece for their EOS40D/50D to keep a low profile on the backside of the camera. It "works", but experimentation in various ambient light situations clearly demonstrates how much variance one can get in captured picture color and brightness, depending on where the sun is, or lights are, how tightly you press your eye to the standard eye piece, and even whether your raincoat hood on your head extends out over the camera or not. These are simple experiments anyone can try, including the case of completely blocking the eye piece opening with a finger for total darkness. You'll probably be surprised at the difference these factors can have on your finished product.
While some of this variance can be compensated for with post processing of images, what you REALLY want is consistency, so that you can apply one correction process for all the shots taken with the same lighting. Who wants to have to individually process EACH picture differently?
What the Hoodman eye cup does is provide a much better "fit" to most people's eye socket. With experimentation, I found overhead bright lights, direct sunlight behind me, and other varying lighting conditions were LARGELY masked by this eye cup, without any great care on my part to fit my face tightly to the cup. A tight fit seems natural, and comfortable with this unit. And once mounted, the eye cup can be rotated to any 360 degree position for Left, Right, or angled shooting. This makes shooting between landscape and portrait trivial to adjust for. The cup is tight, and retains its orientation well, but at the same time is easy to rotate.
Your camera/lens combo is now a bit longer - by about 1" - which can make for a tighter fit in a camera bag, but the cup is soft and will conform.
My one gripe with this unit is how nearly impossible it is, straight out of the package, to mount on a Canon EOS 50D. In fact, I gave up. I did a lot of Googling and found many others who had the same experience, so I knew it wasn't user error.
The problem is a plastic retaining "lip" along the bottom of the eye cup, that's designed to snap in to place and retain the eye cup so it doesn't get "brushed off" in the field or in your camera case. This lip sticks out so far that I (and many other reviewers) were afraid of breaking the camera cup mount, or the cup itself. Then I got to thinking that *if* I somehow managed to get it on, I'd probably never get it off.
What I decided to do was to pocketknife the thickness of the soft plastic retaining clip down just a bit, and that solved the problem. It's a trivial thing to do, believe me. Now it slides on and locks easily, stays locked in place, and yet can be removed as easily as the original Canon eye piece. While it's EASY to make this trim adjustment, I'd pass along one caution - ONLY SHAVE A SMALL AMOUNT OFF AT A TIME, and trial fit often. You don't have to remove much at all, and then it fits like a glove, while staying securely locked in place.
I gave it a 4-star rating only because I still don't think one would EVER want to force-snap this on to their 50D without modifying it, and I think the supplier should include a note to this effect. They must have received several of these "returned" for a refund as a result of this situation.
This accessory WILL make a difference in your pictures - providing better consistency, more comfort against your face, and another inch of separation between your oily nose and the LCD screen. I can't imaging going back to the orignial eye piece, but I'm a pack rat and will keep it in my camera bag ... just in case.
Make sure you go with the 18mm version for the Canon EOS40D/50D !!!
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Hoodman H-EYEC18 HoodEYE for most of the Canon 18mm SLR models
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Hoodman H-EYEC18 HoodEYE for most of the Canon 18mm SLR modelsEyecup for Canon DSLR, excluding 1Ds Mark III, 1D Mark III, 5D and 5D Mark II.
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