THUMBS UP M Rubber Eyecups- Worth Every Cent

Nokton48

Nokton48

Veteran
Local time
12:17 AM
Joined
Dec 19, 2006
Messages
7,141
View My Gallery
I just received "Thumbs Up" E-Clypse Leica-M Rubber Eyecups, one for my M5, and one for my M2. I have to say, I think they are worth every cent I paid. They are $39 each. They screw into the black ring (I didn't realize my M eyepieces were threaded internally) and provide a great view with my eyeglasses, even with the 35mm lenses on these cameras. With the M5, the eyecup fits a bit tightly with my M5 Mr. Zhou case, but overall is quite nice. No issues at all with M2, shown here with my -new- Visoflex III. I go to Lowes quite a bit, but I didn't want to superglue faucet washers to my Leicas. I admire the design of this product, it's a winner IMO. I've lost a great deal of rubber eyecups on cameras over thirty years time, I don't believe these can ever come off easily.
 
Last edited:
$39? why am I not in the rubber eye cup business. geesh.

I know, this is not helpful. I know there really isnt a convenient alternative but damn is that an obscene profit.
 
One could buy a sink faucet water stopper "top hat" and cut off all but the ring and have an excellent rubber eyecup for Leicas. Just a thought. Cost, about 15 cents.
johne
 
The Scoop is way too thick. It reduces the field of view for glasses wearers unacceptably. The best ones are available from Don Goldberg and CameraQuest. The ones from DAG are plastic and snap over the metal eye ring on the Leica finder but are very thin and do not affect the eye relief in any appreciable way. The ones from CameraQuest are little slivers of felt with glue that stick on the metal Leica eye piece ring. They also do not affect the eye releif in any noticeable way. I guess you could also make your own with a piece of felt from a hardware store. They are all overpriced, but so are my glasses.

/T
 
The only rubber eyecup available for the Leica-M's is the E-Clypse, as far as I know. I think it is going to be a real pleasure to use on both my cameras, and I'm glad I found these.

I am replacing DAG eyepiece covers, which tend to fall off, I have resisted gluing them on (I'll be selling mine off soon). The E-Clypse is way to go IMO. There's lots of ways to cover the eypiece, (how about liquid rubber?) that's not what I wanted. What I wanted, was a nicely designed eyecup for the M.

The Cameraquest covers are no longer available. I bought a couple when they were available, they do what they are supposed to. I put them on auxiliary finders I use alot.
 
Last edited:
I've used liquid rubber, too. It tends not to be neat and it rubs off easily, but it does work. The DAG covers are made of plastic that snap on to the eyepiece. As long as you never remove them mine have remained tight as a drum. But they do tend to crack when removed. After that they are looser but I have never had one just fall off.

/T
 
Maybe I popped mine off the camera one or two times too many, when I first got them. One dosen't stay on, I find it in the bottom of the camera bag. The other one has a crack in it, probably from use.

I'm happy as a clam with my new E-Clypses.
 
The eye relief is excellent (no viewfinder cutoff at all for me). That's why I like it. Alot of time has gone into this design, methinks.
 
Looks like a good product. It's always interesting to see/hear people talk about 'obscene profits.' There is quite a bit of engineering and tooling involved in creating such a product that will never be sold in volume. Those upfront costs are the same whether Tim sells 50 a month or 5,000 a month.
 
digitalintrigue said:
Looks like a good product. It's always interesting to see/hear people talk about 'obscene profits.' There is quite a bit of engineering and tooling involved in creating such a product that will never be sold in volume. Those upfront costs are the same whether Tim sells 50 a month or 5,000 a month.
Click to expand...


If you know an engineer, you can have something like that drawn up in 18-40 seconds for a few bucks and chinese manufacturing in small volume cant be too much. The typical retail structure that I am used to is 5x parts costs. When I do a small run of things, that price is 5x parts and production costs which include all your engineering to make the thing exist. Five times parts costs would make that $7.80 in production costs which doesnt seem very probable to me. Im thinking it would be less than $2 per if you are working with the right people.

I didnt mean to suggest that someone was going to get rich selling 200 of these, its just that the markup that a manufacturer is allowed when thier item gets attached to a Leica is just astronomical. I wish the people in my industry that I sell to were as tolerant...
 
Here's another view, it's an eyecup that screws into any M camera, it's not an eyepiece cover:
 
Last edited:
Heh. Have you ever actually ever gotten a quote for tooling? Take a look at this flickr set and you'll see it is FAR more than 18-40 seconds. 🙂

http://www.flickr.com/photos/fotogo/sets/72157605872499628/

After the CAD is done, then prototype models are built. After that, tooling is created. And the tooling alone is thousands of dollars, perhaps approaching $10k, or far higher in the case of larger items. This is assuming you don't have changes in the design or improvements, all of which add costs. This is before producing even one unit for sale.

Now, once all that is done, yes, the productions can be done relatively cheaply.

But one shouldn't ignore all the upfront costs.

Lastly, it's not inexpensive doing small runs. It actually costs more per unit to do a small run. And most Chinese manufacturers are not interested in small runs, they want to produce volume.



WoolenMammoth said:
If you know an engineer, you can have something like that drawn up in 18-40 seconds for a few bucks and chinese manufacturing in small volume cant be too much. The typical retail structure that I am used to is 5x parts costs. When I do a small run of things, that price is 5x parts and production costs which include all your engineering to make the thing exist. Five times parts costs would make that $7.80 in production costs which doesnt seem very probable to me. Im thinking it would be less than $2 per if you are working with the right people.

I didnt mean to suggest that someone was going to get rich selling 200 of these, its just that the markup that a manufacturer is allowed when thier item gets attached to a Leica is just astronomical. I wish the people in my industry that I sell to were as tolerant...
Click to expand...
 
Last edited by a moderator:
WoolenMammoth said:
If you know an engineer, you can have something like that drawn up in 18-40 seconds for a few bucks and chinese manufacturing in small volume cant be too much. The typical retail structure that I am used to is 5x parts costs. When I do a small run of things, that price is 5x parts and production costs which include all your engineering to make the thing exist. Five times parts costs would make that $7.80 in production costs which doesnt seem very probable to me. Im thinking it would be less than $2 per if you are working with the right people.

I didnt mean to suggest that someone was going to get rich selling 200 of these, its just that the markup that a manufacturer is allowed when thier item gets attached to a Leica is just astronomical. I wish the people in my industry that I sell to were as tolerant...
Click to expand...


Guys, umm, it's called "capitalism".

Funny how proud we are to spread our way of life to the world, yet so many Americans sound/behave like "closet-communists."

Morals do not play a role......Profit does. It;s the way it is.

Growing up under the continuous threat and imposed fear due to propaganda within the States of the "evil" communists...

..one needs to remember that an actual communist system has never really existed.

Well, it can't...but I digress.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Similar threads

D
Which M to supplement my SLR kit?
Replies
15
Views
2K
Clark.EE
C
P
Struggling to love the M-P 240
2
Replies
27
Views
6K
:: Mark
M
SimonSawSunlight
smallest smallest smallest 35mm lens for Leica-M (or M39)
2 3 4
Replies
63
Views
21K
thinkfloyd
thinkfloyd
O
Great Service from Tim Isaac (Thumbs Up)
Replies
1
Views
1K
nanthor
N
Back
Top Bottom