I recently, after much deliberation, bit the bullet and purchased a Nauticam 180 deg viewfinder. Ever since I have been furious with myself.......
....why did I wait so long!!!! I had been toying with a viewfinder for a long time. Those of you who have had the pleasure of looking through an ikelite 'super' viewfinder will recognise the issues. You simply cannot see the whole image so framing is hit and miss, you cannot judge critical focus, on night dives with macro lenses you have no idea if the shot is sharp until you upload it. You end up squinting soo hard that you go cross eyed and you have to wedge your face right into the back of the housing and squashing your nose. I actually had a rebreather loop mouthpiece come apart as the thumbscrew rubbed on the back of the housing.....not fun!
With the new viewfinder in place it is a revelation....You can see everything even with your eye back from the viewfinder, you can judge focus as the image is larger, brighter and sharper and you no longer get a squashed nose!!!!
It is much larger than I was expecting and reassuringly heavy.....On the 30d housing it does not obstruct any controls. It does alter the balance of the housing especially with an 8in dome, it wants to rotate backwards but after trimming the housing it is no problem. The adapter ring does its job, however it is a bit of a fiddle to line up. You get a supplied tool to fit the the adapter. This involves removing the old viewfinder (very easy), installing the 1st part of the adaptor using the supplied tool, again very easy. Then you have an index ring which sits on a friction oring and a collar. The collar screws on using the supplied tool, however orientating the index ring is tricky. The tool does not fit the index ring and as you tighten the collar, the index ring also rotates. The only way I found to complete the final line up was to use circlip pliers on the index ring and then fit the viewfinder and rotate the whole viewfinder to achieve the correct alignment. I didn't really like doing this however it worked and after a pool test with the empty housing the camera went in and I have not looked back.....
Many Thanks to Alex T (Alsky72) for transporting the viewfinder out to Sharm. (I will send those papers you need in the next few days...sorry!!)
