ZI Rangefinder Misalignment: Fact or Fiction?

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Huck Finn

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I have had an interesting experience with the rangefinder on my Zeiss Ikon recently. I have owned my ZI for almost 2 years & never had a problem with rangefinder misalignment - at least I thought I didn't.

Well, a while ago I took a trip to San Diego. Standing on the edge of San Diego Bay & lookint across at Point Loma, I decided to check my rangefinder alignment just for the heck of it. (I had some concern because the camera had taken a whack in the overhead compartment when we landed.) Sure enough, the images didn't converge at infinity, so I cursed & assumed that I had the dreaded misalignment curse - & my camera was out of warranty. But wait, there's more.

I am fortunate to have an experienced Leica technician in independent practice reasonably close to where I live. So, I took the camera to him to make the adjustment. As it turns out, he has taken on a contract with a Zeiss Ikon dealer to service the ZI for him, so he has worked on a number of cameras at this point. He was aware of complaints about rangefinder misalignment with this camera & had some interesting comments about it. Here is his perspective:

1. He has looked at the ZI's rangefinder & has found it to be quite sturdily constructed. Not flimsy at all. All of the parts are well secured & he doesn't believe that it is delicate or that rangefinders are becoming misaligned in shipping.

2. While the layman's test of misalignment (focus at infinity) is a handy way to check the camera, he said that the only real way to tell if the rangefinder is properly adjusted is with a collimator.

3. He has seen & heard of a number of the camera's arriving from the factory with this apparent misalignment, but when he has asked the customers, they have had no complaints about pictures being out of focus. He feels that ultimately this is the real test of any significant misalirnment.

4. He has come to the conclusion that Cosina/Zeiss have spec'd the rangefinder to be collimated at a setting which has tolerances which sometimes leaves this small gap at infinity. Although he can't explain why they would choose the setting they have, he feels that the proof is in the results & that in his experience, users have not been complaining about the results. He noted that because of its long baseline, a sma gap at infiinity isore visible in the ZI viewfinder than it would be with a short base rangefinder.

The bottom line to his conclusions is that in his view, the rangefinder setting that some people have complained about is the intended setting - not the result of any kind of accidental misalignment. This would explain the experience that some have reported of finding multimple cameras "misaligned" or of others reporting that they have sent the camera back to the factory & have had it returned with the same "problem."

He explained that any rangefinder setting must accomodate a variety of factors & be set to meet the needs of many different lenses. It is the lens after all to which rangefinder is being coupled. Manufacturers like Leica, Konica, Cosina, & Zeiss can't even agree on a standard film to flange distance.

He was able to readjust my rangefinderjust as Tony Rose has been able to do through his technician. Because I do onot have long vistas where I live like San Diego Bay to test my rangefinder, I still do not know if my camera arrived from the factory with this gap & I didn't notice it because I didn't have a great enough distance to test it at infinity or if the gap developed due to some misadventure like the plane landing. I can only report that I have never had a problem with my pictures being out of focus - including the pictures I took after I arrived in San Diego - unless it was due to human error - this human.
 
waileong said:
What about vertical misalignment?
Click to expand...

I looked at a new ZM body in a shop today and the rangefinder vertical alignment was out a bit. The (very experienced) guy in the shop said that they're all a bit like that, but it doesn't matter, since it's the horizontal alignment that really matters. Although that is sort of true, you get a better estimation of correct focus when both are right.
 
Your experience is similar to mine, with two exceptions:

1- my ZI is at the repair shop NOW to get calibrated, so we will see what happens
2- I noticed a certain misalignement at infinity ( especially visible with the 1.35X magnifier), but I also had some issues with sharpness, not so much at infinity, as at close distance (esp. with the 35/1.2 Nokton)
3- the technician told me both ZI and Bessas don't have Leica style double alignement ( for close up and infinity) but only one regulation

I left him the camera together with the 90/2.8 Elmarit and asked for calibration of both. Will tell you later how it has panned out.
 
Huck Finn said:
Because I do onot have long vistas where I live like San Diego Bay to test my rangefinder, I still do not know if my camera arrived from the factory with this gap & I didn't notice it because I didn't have a great enough distance to test it at infinity or if the gap developed due to some misadventure like the plane landing.
Click to expand...

Don't you have the moon shining over there? Thats nearly infinity ;-)
 
Puh! This is about what I have tried to say all along!

My ZI is off at infinity when you look through the viewfinder. But this camera, together with a flock of Zeiss, voigtländer and Leica lenses, takes VERY sharp images. So, I ask again; what is my problem? I have taken a lot of test rolls of film to get to the bottom of this and has found the ZI to take 'just perfecty' focused pictures. I have even scanned heeps of negatives on my Nikon Coolcan 8000 ED - and looked through them at 100% in PS and can't find a trace of any misalinged focus.


Leica has just launched a FAQ page with all kinds of 'stupid' and not so stupid question which I am sure prevents heeps of M8s being returned to the factory 'just for nothing'. Carl Zeiss should do something similar and include the information above.

The new Zeiss Ikon? An excellent camera!
 
I tend to agree with you and your technician, Huck, from my experience with
multiple Leica bodies and a variety of lenses, and some comments from Don
that I got recently. For instance,

- I have a 90/2 that works well on two bodies (M2 and M3) and is slightly off at inifnity on two others
(M3 and M6, lens and bodies were CLA'ed). Don explained me that even if both the lens and the body are within
specs, the combo could be off. Still the lens will produce good results at all focal settings.
- I have two Nokton 40's that are a little off on some bodies and match others.

It has something to do with how the lens RF cam touches the camera RF roller. Some lenses
have a higher or a lower, a thicker or a thinner cam.

With LTM lenses, I usually have to play a little until I find a matching adapter.

The differences usually show up on the M3 more likely, obviously.

My criterion for "fit" is that the RF is noticably less off than the
fastest DOF mark.

Couple of notes on the ZI specifically:

- What should be more important than the BL is the viewfinder magnification.
- except for the two Sonnars (which don't seem very popular), the Zeiss lenses
have relatively deep DOF. I would assume that only few people actually use ZI
bodies with shallow DOF lenses.

Rangefinders do get out of alignment, that's just a fact of life. I react usually
to changes, and not absolut values (once my M bodies have been CLA'ed).

May I ask what the lens was that caused your misalignment in San Diego ?

Best,

Roland.
 
Last edited:
ferider said:
- except for the two Sonnars (which don't seem very popular), the Zeiss lenses
have relatively deep DOF. I would assume that only few people actually use ZI
bodies with shallow DOF lenses.

Best,

Roland.
Click to expand...

- ??


I use mine with a Leica Noctilux 50 mm 1,0 with the narrowest DOF in the business, among others. I got good reasons to believe that this Leica lense focuses more accurate on my ZI than my Leica M8! Further; it is not the brand/make that decides the DOF. It is the focal length, regardless if it is a Carl Zeiss or a Leica lense.

Generally; don't take this 'off at infinity' as an absolute sure sign for that your ZI camera is off. Test shoot it with different lenes and conditions and make up your opinion after more thorough tests.
 
Olsen said:
- ??
I use mine with a Leica Noctilux 50 mm 1,0 with the narrowest DOF in the business, among others. I got good reasons to believe that this Leica lense focuses more accurate on my ZI than my Leica M8! Further; it is not the brand/make that decides the DOF. It is the focal length, regardless if it is a Carl Zeiss or a Leica lense.

Generally; don't take this 'off at infinity' as an absolute sure sign for that your ZI camera is off. Test shoot it with different lenes and conditions and make up your opinion after more thorough tests.
Click to expand...

I think, you and me agree.

But my point was that you might be the exception; many ZI users will
use ZI lenses such as the 50/2, 35/2, 25/2.8, etc that have deep DOF.
Check with Joe, for instance.

Roland.
 
I'm not sure if what I am going to say is the same thing you are talking about, but I think it is. What I found on my ZI is that the rangefinder focuses just short of infinity for things that are very far away, like a stop sign at the end of the block. In other words, the ZI would show the stop sign as being in perfect focus not at the end of the lens's range, but just a hair short of that. My Leica M registers that same stop sign as in focus at infinity. However, my ZI does focus at infinity with things that are very, very far away, like a contrail or a cloud or the moon. So there is no question to me that the rangefinder is perfectly aligned.

What I concluded is that the ZI is calibrated differently than most other cameras, so that "infinity" means incredibly far, not 50 feet. However, I was nervous about this and I tested it when I first got the camera. I found then, and have continued to find, that the pictures are perfectly in focus. At infinity, at mid-range or close up. Even if I focus as closely as possible with my 50/1.4 lux at f1.4.

I assume Zeiss thinks of this infinity focus calibration as precision. I personally found it confusing because it's different from other cameras. But the results have been fantastic.
 
my first zi was way off at infinity if i focused on the house across the street. i don't think i checked focus at the moon at the time as i was a bit freaked out that a new camera could be so 'off'.
however the photos i took were all fine, seemed perfectly focussed.
i exchanged the camera, the second was fine at infinity, both the house acress the street and the moon and the photos are all fine as well.

maybe my second one is an anomoly?

no matter, it's a great camera that will be with me forever.

joe
 
ferider said:
May I ask what the lens was that caused your misalignment in San Diego ?

Best,

Roland.
Click to expand...

Roland, I was using the ZM 35/2 & just for the heck of it decided to test the RF. I focused across the ba7 on a flag pole at the Coast Guard station severtal miles away up on a ridge. Set at infinity, the two poles rendered a double image at the maximum setting. Close, but still a double image. I could not achieve focus. I should have taken a picture to see how it would have come out, but I didn't, so I have no way of knowing if it really was out of focus. All of the other pictures I took on the trip were perfectly in focus.
 
What's interesting to me is how variable the infinity settings are, at least mine, Joe's and yours. But everyone is reporting that the pictures are fine. Perhaps because depth of field at infinity is enough, and the focus is better calibrated for closer distances where depth of field is smaller?
 
Just to add a personal experience: when I bought the ZI in Japan I made a careful check to see if there wasn't any problem at infinity: everything lined up dead center. But on a recent trip to Europe, I noticed a small amount of drift. After about a week, the drift became less noticeable. Finally, back in Taiwan, the RF is completely back to being dead on.
I haven't noticed any difference in the focus on my photos.
 
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