In article <3vro3m$mb5@usenet.INS.CWRU.Edu>, cu050@cleveland.Freenet.Edu
says...
>In a previous article, warren128@aol.com (Warren128) says:
>>Neal,
>>The F3hp and F3 are identical except for their prism finders. The newer
>>HP (High Eyepoint, often mistakenly referred to as "high point") finder
>>allows one to view the entire viewfinder from as far as 1 inch awayfrom
>>the eyepiece. This is useful for people who wear glasses or sunglasses.
>>Warren
>>
>Or to look at it another way, the apparent image size in the F3 finder
>is larger than that in the F3HP finder, and is therefore easier to scan
>and focus (assuming your eye is pressed up against the window).
>
The magnifications of the two finders are close - the larger eyepiece
permits the greater allowable viewing distance in the HP (and greater
keystoning of the screen rectangle with off-axis viewing). I wear
glasses, but can easily see the whole screen and display in the "Low
Eyepoint" version, which is also a bit smaller and lighter (and cheaper,
used). Having said that, my favorite F3 finder is the sports-finder,
which is like a "Super High Eyepoint" finder: much larger, heavier,
and more expensive (and with a bit less magnification than the HP
finder [and more allowance for keystoning]). I like seeing the view-
finder rectangle in a large field of black (makes seeing the overall
composition, and the particulars of how shapes in the image relate to
the rectangle edges, easier), and I seem to get a higher percentage
of really sharp images with this finder (so much for magnification).
Also, it is occasionaly useful for its original purpose - I can hold
the camera away from me several inches to shoot near water surfaces,
bugs in awkward places, with super-long lenses (when I do not want
to bump the camera, causing a period of shivering in the image), etc.
BTW, the eyepiece size is 1"x 1.5" on the sports-finder.
Hope this helps.