04/18/2023   English German

  Edition # 148  
San Francisco, 04-18-2023


Figure [1]: Small mirror attachment shows the camera view in selfie mode.

Michael Nowadays, a cellphone camera is usually good enough for decent photos and video recordings, but a perfectionist like myself always looks at it closely and therefore needs professional quality. As luck would have it, Angelika got one of these ultra-modern "system cameras" as a birthday present, which is what Germans call mirrorless cameras. The Sony a7ii, combined with a good (but expensive!) lens, takes breathtaking photos and videos, and I'm also allowed to use it from time to time to revive my original passion for photography and shoot my Youtube-Videos.

Unfortunately, the Sony engineers who designed this camera didn't think it through and simply forgot that some people use it in selfie mode. That is, pointing the camera at themselves, and while doing that, it is absolutely essential to be able to see one's face on a control monitor so that you don't cut off your own head and have to reshoot the whole scene while cursing loudly. Now while the display on the back of the Sony a7iii can be folded out and swiveled, this can't be done in a way so that you can see it from the front. Clearly a major brain fart by the Sony engineers.

But be that as it may, luckily a clever tinkerer has now invented an accessory to be stuck on the camera's flash shoe. It's a prism-shaped plastic housing containing a mirror visible through the front viewing hole at a 45-degree angle, through which you then can see the rear-folded control display with the ongoing recording from the front of the camera! Brilliant!

Figure [2]: The essay costs only 12.95 on eBay.

On Ebay, the item was available for the reasonable price of $12.95 with free shipping, and now during my recordings, I can perfectly see if my head is in frame without an extra cameraman. What a relief! Top product!

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Latest update: 03-May-2023