thinking out loud

Many otherwise good point and shoot digital cameras do not have viewfinders. This is okay when you’re inside or under shaded lighting conditions, but in the full glare of the sun it can be extremely annoying. Most of the pictures I take are at the beach under the aforesaid bright conditions and so I’ve long thought how handy it would be to have a simple optical viewfinder that one could somehow attach to a point and shoot camera.

In the absence of a proper one, here is my bodged up sighting tube idea…

As you can see, I’ve taken the cap from a pen and taped it on to the top of the camera.

Here’s what it looks like from head on…

Several things to note. First, you obviously need a cap with holes at both ends. This cap had a nicely centered small hole on one end, so I put it facing forward and then started playing around with the alignment to get it right for my telephoto at full magnification.

Second, you need to align your tube/cap with the central axis of the lens. The picture shows that I haven’t quite got the position right. It really should be nudged across to the right a bit more.

Third, be aware of parallax error. What looks centered through the finder close up, will not be centered at full zoom. You may need to deflect the tube slightly up or down to get it to match the centre of the image at the zoom setting you want to use. As a practical matter, this isn’t that important because you’re generally in the ballpark to begin with. This is not about framing stuff precisely, it’s about ensuring that your subject is definitely in the picture when you’re using the telephoto under bright conditions.

Hello Friends,

Gloomy, drippy old start to proceedings in Sydney, but the Bureau assures us it will lift by this afternoon. Surf looks pretty similar to yesterday, ie small but not flat at beaches with some exposure to the SE. North corners are a bit bigger and protected south corners (eg Collaroy) are close to flat.

There’s not a lot of juice to the swell because the average period is about 8-9 sec and heights at sea are about 2 metres, with the odd bigger one. The consequences are waves that range from knee to chest high on the bigger ones. Rain means runoff of course, so the water won’t be getting less woofy. It seemed to be okay at Mona Vale yesterday arvo when PB and I went for a dip (see the vid link right) , but Dee Why still looked pretty ordinary thanks to the combo of the lagoon opening and the heavy runoff from earlier in the week.

Outlook is for these conditions to bumble along at much the same levels through today but overnight to become distinctly smaller and therefore much more marginal. I’m guessing knee to waist high tomorrow morning.

The weather maps are looking interesting for the week ahead as it appears that we could get an east coast low in the southern Tasman. But right now the models reckon it won’t be too intense and so we may only get a weak south pulse around about Wednesday in Sydney.

Have fun with your day and get up to some good on the way through, eh?

Don thinks we’re going to start Saturday with light winds and a little SE swell. First light should see a few waist to chest high sets - but only if you’re in the right spot. Similar conditions yesterday meant some beaches were fun and others were close to flat. If you’re going now, check the water before you jump in, runoff from the rain has been pretty bad at many beaches this week. More surf news from Don at 0725.