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Sp-100 24-1200mm with Red Dot site built in.

Started Jan 29, 2014 | Discussions thread
phazelag
OP phazelag Veteran Member • Posts: 3,376
Re: Recommend a red dot sight for existing camera?

Hatstand wrote:

Michael Geary wrote:

Hatstand or anyone, can you suggest a red dot sight that fits a hotshoe or can be adapted for one? I looked on B&H and Amazon and saw a lot of them, but they all seem to be designed to be mounted on a rifle, not a camera.

I actually pre-ordered the SP-100 as soon as I saw this feature, but if I can attach an RDS to my E-P5 that would be even better.

Thanks!

The Sight:
Red dot sights are also known as "tactical gunsights", and they are all designed for guns. The one in the Olympus SP-100 is the first and only one I've ever heard of, that was specifically designed for a camera.

They are readily available, you can buy a sight online from places like amazon, as well as airgun or gun shops. They have standard mountings for gun rails.

I recommend one with a large mirror, a thin frame around the mirror, an "open" design (not tube), switchable brightness, and selectable reticles. The one I use came from gadget.brando (ie. Hong Kong), but the same design is available practically anywhere.

eg. >> This << looks just like mine

Panasonic FZ200, with RDS on photosolve Xtend-a-sight mounting, and Canon TC-DC58A teleconverter

I note that on the one I received from gadget.brando - the alignment screws did not work, due to poor assembly. I had to dismantle and reassemble it - after that it was fine.

The Mounting:
The trick is finding a "standard mounting rail" to put the RDS on, that's designed to fit in a camera's hotshoe. There are only two that I know of. One is rubbish (gadget.brando), and the other is Photosolve's "Xtend-a-sight Plus".

Hotshoes are not all exactly the same size, so the Xtend-a-sight is made to fit the biggest possible hotshoe. This means it might be too big for your camera's hotshoe. In which case... for a good, tight, stable, "repeatable" fit... you would need to (carefully and slowly!) grind one edge of its hotshoe plate, until it just barely fits into your particular camera's hotshoe.

Once I've aligned a sight mounted on the Xtend-a-sight (parallel to the lens axis)... I have never had to re-align it, no matter how many times I put it on the camera and remove it.

I will probably order that Xtend a sight to mount my site better.  But what handle do you have attached to your extender tube?

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