I have one of these loupes, and, for the money especially, it's quite a good optic. As you noted, the eye relief is superb.
There is a little distortion in my sample, and compared to a far more expensive Schneider loupe, it is noticeable. But, the magnification of the Pentax loupe is greater than the 4X magnification of the Schneider, so, the area of the neg that you see that's comparable to the area that you see with the Schneider, is just about as good. Does that make sense? I'd suggest looking through a Pentax 5.5 loupe and making your own decision, and pay little attention to the denizens of dialogue on the net. I like my loupe and am very satisfied with the decision to get it. It's certainly possible to get a loupe that's a little better optically (at the edges, for sure) but when you consider all the factors, such as eye relief, magnification, ability to see the entire frame, and cost, it may be hard to find a better value. Another alternative, albeit more $$$, is the Pentax zoom loop 5x - 10x or so. shel Matti Etelapera wrote: > > Hi, > > I did some research on the Pentax 5,5x lupe. Judging by the specs it seems > to be one of the best alternatives for a photographer with glasses - > mainly because of it�s big eye relief. The thing is that there are totally > contradictory verdicts on a possible distortion problem. Three reviews on > the net say there is huge pincushion distortion and two say there is none. > Is there a quality control issue with Pentax or whats going on here? Any > comments? > > -Matti
