Vari-Magni experiences?

Aging eyesight and manual focus are not good partners. So I recently

picked up an Olympus Vari-Magni to help with fine-tuning the focus of

tripod-mounted shots. I've not used one before. Any tips, gotchas,

observations? --Gene

Hi Gene!

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I have one: I use it mainly for astro-photography, both for the fine focussing <i>and</i> the often-inconvenient angles needed for the camera! I love mine, but unfortunately needed to by another for my 10D (ooh, expensive!) so I could do the same with digital.

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Did you realise that you can also use it like a periscope? Haven't tried it for looking/photographing over walls, but it is useful if you want to take a picture from ground level, but don't want to (or can't) lie down to see through the camera!

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Sometimes I've been confused by the focus adjustment on the finder, but you soon get used to it. Just remember, it reverses right and left!

Thanks for the info Neil! Now let me see if I've got this right. I can use it like a periscope but it reverses left to right. So, if I carefully position a mirror in my living room, I can lie on the couch, use the Vari-Magni to look into the mirror to watch a football game and see the teams running towards the correct endzones. Have I got it?? :)

I've noticed that the dioptric correction can play tricks when switching magnification if you also have correction on the camera eyepiece - such as an OM3/4Ti, and there are no marks to guage when it is 'zeroed'. I found it easy to disturb, and ended up using electricians tape to fix it in place, seeing how only I would be using it. Other than that it is very useful for macro and telescopic focussing. It really slows things down though, but this is not always a bad thing. I personally didn't find the left/right transposition too hard to get used to.

Thanks for the info, Kieran. I'm using mine on two OM-1's so I don't have any dual-correction issues. You confirmed my belief that this thing is really for macro and long telephoto work. My main reason for getting it was macro photography. So little DOF and so easy to get the focus slighty off. So far the Vari-Magni seems to be helping.