Hot shoe finder for X-M1

Hans Wahlgren · Feb 9, 2016

Yes, I know it's an old camera without further functional firmware development from Fuji, beside lens adaptations, but I still find this small camera the best option for street photography. It has the same technical content as the X-Pro 1 so the picture quality is superb. The only issue I have with this small underestimated camera is shooting in bright sunlight. The screen turns more or less black. A hot shoe finder would be a good solution for that issue, but I don't know what finder to look for. Anyone that have been solving this issue already?

bowportes · Feb 9, 2016

Hans Wahlgren said:
Yes, I know it's an old camera without further functional firmware development from Fuji, beside lens adaptations, but I still find this small camera the best option for street photography. It has the same technical content as the X-Pro 1 so the picture quality is superb. The only issue I have with this small underestimated camera is shooting in bright sunlight. The screen turns more or less black. A hot shoe finder would be a good solution for that issue, but I don't know what finder to look for. Anyone that have been solving this issue already?

You're right, it's a great little camera, but there's no hot shoe finder in existence.

However, some of us have used this and found that it helps a lot:

http://www.clearviewer.com/Order.html

MrFresno · Feb 9, 2016

You can find optical viewfinders on eBay that will mount to the hot shoe. Ive used these before and they work great with primes.

--
Life is like photography:
FOCUS on what's important---CAPTURE the good times---DEVELOP from the negatives---
And if things don't work out, then TAKE ANOTHER SHOT

bowportes · Feb 9, 2016

Randy Benter said:
You can find optical viewfinders on eBay that will mount to the hot shoe. Ive used these before and they work great with primes.

MrFresno · Feb 9, 2016

bowportes said:
Randy Benter said:

You can find optical viewfinders on eBay that will mount to the hot shoe. Ive used these before and they work great with primes.

--
Life is like photography:
FOCUS on what's important---CAPTURE the good times---DEVELOP from the negatives---
And if things don't work out, then TAKE ANOTHER SHOT

Click to expand...

How do these work, Randy, since they aren't tied into the camera electronics and the live view? Is it just a framing approximation?

Interesting to hear about.

Accessory OVFs are made for various focal lengths, so you just get one that matches the lens you are using. I found the framing lines on the Voigtlander 40mm was a good match for the Fuji 28mm lens (42mm eq). It suffers from a bit of parallax error (just like X100) because it is not TTL, but otherwise a great option for cameras without viewfinders. It doesn't display any camera data, just framing.

--
Life is like photography:
FOCUS on what's important---CAPTURE the good times---DEVELOP from the negatives---
And if things don't work out, then TAKE ANOTHER SHOT

bowportes · Feb 9, 2016

Randy Benter said:
bowportes said:

Randy Benter said:

You can find optical viewfinders on eBay that will mount to the hot shoe. Ive used these before and they work great with primes.

--
Life is like photography:
FOCUS on what's important---CAPTURE the good times---DEVELOP from the negatives---
And if things don't work out, then TAKE ANOTHER SHOT

Click to expand...

How do these work, Randy, since they aren't tied into the camera electronics and the live view? Is it just a framing approximation?

Interesting to hear about.

Click to expand...

Accessory OVFs are made for various focal lengths, so you just get one that matches the lens you are using. I found the framing lines on the Voigtlander 40mm was a good match for the Fuji 28mm lens (42mm eq). It suffers from a bit of parallax error (just like X100) because it is not TTL, but otherwise a great option for cameras without viewfinders. It doesn't display any camera data, just framing.

--
Life is like photography:
FOCUS on what's important---CAPTURE the good times---DEVELOP from the negatives---
And if things don't work out, then TAKE ANOTHER SHOT

Coming from m4/3, when he said "hot shoe finder," my thinking was limited to the Olympus and Panasonic hotshoe EVFs that actually tie in to the camera's Live View; I hadn't even considered an optical one. The Clearviewer offers all the info from the camera's LCD, but isn't hot shoe mounted. I have found it a help on very bright days, but an annoyance at other times.

Do you think Fuji will ever release anything like an X-M2 (or 3), or is the X-E2 (3) close enough that they'll never bother with that? It's my pocketable backup to the X-T1.

noyo · Feb 9, 2016

Hans Wahlgren said:
The only issue I have with this small underestimated camera is shooting in bright sunlight. The screen turns more or less black.

You do know there is a bright screen mode, toggled on/off by holding in the Q button for approx. 3 seconds? (A little yellow icon appears to show it's on).

The brightness of this mode can be set via the Q menu 'LCD brightness'.

It's not 100% ideal but I have been surprised by how few times I have not been able to shoot, even in sunshine.

Of course, sometimes I have to shield the screen with my hand and turn my back to the sun so that my body acts as a shade.

You have to trust the camera to focus properly in such conditions too and it isn't always perfectly in focus.

Perhaps I should also clarify that holding the camera out at arms length or at head/eye level is not very workable in these conditions and I would usually have the tilt screen at the horizontal position and the camera held in against my chest/stomach, I'd be hunched over it.

I accept it's not ideal in every case but these techniques help push the X-M1's usability.

Plus if you are photographing people hunched over the tilt screen they do not know where to look as the normal engagement between the photographer and the subject is broken. Ideal for fly-on-the wall shooting but this is another way the X-M1 is lacking without an OVF/EVF. Indeed with the X-M1 a hot shoe finder might help with eye contact. For most everything else, I can usually get by with the bright screen mode.

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Hot shoe finder for X-M1

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