A discussion during an oly-e.de user meeting lead to a series of camera grips. The latest prototype is designed to simplify the handling of long telephoto lenses.
It is called LoopPod. I'm trying to build a small batch for reasonable money.
The design allows to carry heavy lenses easily by the loop handle. It also allows to hold the lens in a more stable fashion.
With an angle of 114° the Zuiko 7-14mm approaches the limits of wide angle optics. The highly convex front lens is one of the constraints building such a lens.
It also features a built-in lens hood that doesn't allow screw-in type filters.
I took some measurements and found out, that a filter size of 100 ×75mm (4 ×3") may be used under certain circumstances without vignetting.
I therefore designed a filter holder that accepts Cokin X-PRO filters or similar sized filters.
My prototype is built from black plastic using SLS technology. Two o-rings provide enough friction along the thin edge of the filter to keep it in place.
I have launched the production of the holder in a small batch. This has reduced the costs per piece significantly. The first items have already been shipped. I modified the design so the holder will also accept other filter sizes than Cokin X-PRO. A filter has to cover at least an area of 100×128mm and is allowed a maximum width of 130mm to fit. Filter thickness may vary between 2.5 and 3.5mm. The filter will be kept in place by two guiding rails on both sides of the frame. Up to two high quality o-rings provide additional friction if necessary.
Please place orders through the contact form on my website.
There are quite a lot of cameras on the market that can't be controlled by software through a PC. CamControl closes the gap. It consists of a USB dongle and a piece of software. The dongle contains all the circuitry neede to interface to the USB port of a PC or Mac. It also contains a 3.5mm stereo jack to connect to a camera remote control connector through an adaptor cable.
You may "press" the relese button half-way and full under software control. You may do this even with a radio transmitter between the dongle and the camera.
The dongle acts as a HID device (like a mouse or keyboard) and doesn't need any additional drivers for Windows. The software interface is open source and well documented so it's up to you to add further functionality.