Hoodman HoodLoupe 3.0 Review: Useful -- to a degree.

I bought the Hoodman H-LPP3 HoodLoupe 3.0 Professional 3-Inch Screen Loupe from Amazon a few weeks back and just wanted to share my opinion on it for all of you Canon 7D / T2i / 550D video lovers out there.

Why would you possibly need a viewer for your LCD?  Because when it's bright -- you can't see your LCD!  I gave it 3 out of 5 stars on Amazon for the following reasons...

GOOD:

• Let's you view your focus on LiveView in the bright sun.
• The lack of magnification doesn't burn your LCD if the sun accidentally gets in.

BAD:

• There's no magnification so there's really no reason to charge $80 on this except to bump up the margins. The cost to manufacture this runs around $8-$10 (my estimate only). Yes, you will feel ripped off as you buy this. It's like forgetting your toothbrush, being charged $80 for it, but you have no choice as there are no other solutions that's cheaper (until recently, see updated comments below). And yes, no one is forcing you to buy it -- but now you know what kind of build quality this is.
• The camera straps that runs $16-17 are useless rubber bands. Do not buy.
• Aside from the useless rubber bands (which I gave a separate review for), there's no way to hold the hood up except maybe perhaps glue it or you can build a 'trap' using the tripod hole which I've seen some people do.

Update!

There's a new product out there called the LCDVF in the $150-$160 range.  It has a mounting plate PLUS the ability to magnify!  Let's see how this works out.  We are patiently waiting for its delivery -- as it is out of stock.