HOWTO: Vertical rangefinder calibration (with pics)

[jimbobuk]

Well thanks to a lot of the posts on here I felt confident enough to have a go at fixing the slight vertical offset that the rangefinder has had since i've had my R-D1 (ok, only a week or so so far).

The posts were really very helpful but there was so little pictures to help guide the way that i thought i'd take some of my own whilst i was there. They've come out ok, but not THAT good.. its quite tricky to get a clean shot of all the areas around the hotshoe.

I decided to go ahead and use standard wooden toothpicks to get the hotshoe cover off. I don't know if others have had stronger toothpicks to do this job but I managed to get through about 5 or 6 toothpicks as i tried to get the cover lose. Here's the first shot of the cover itself still attached.

I've dodged out the serial number so that a dodgy seller can't use the shot as proof of a camera they dont have. Here's the same shot showing rather crudely where the toothpicks have to be used to loosen the cover.

The numbers indicating the order to push the toothpick into the cover at the rough positions and orientations shown by the lines. I think something more blunt may be helpful for the first two tabs at the front of the cover.. I did damage a lot of toothpicks in doing the whole cover, but more for the front than the rear.

Here's a shot showing more clearly the area for the first two tabs to be popped up

The front two tabs (numbers 1&2) pop up quite easily, the rear tabs i found more difficult. Gently levering out the front of the cover using a toothpick horizontally gave me enough of a gap at the back to insert a toothpick vertically down to finally prise away the cover (numbers 3&4). Once the cover is lose you can pull it off the hotshoe but it only comes halfway before catching on something.. using another toothpick here you can approach from underneath the front two tabs (numbers 1&2) to raise the entire cover clear of the hotshoe stopping it from catching on whatever it catches on.

Heres a shot of the hotshoe cover completely removed from the camera

Having removed the cover you are left with the rest of the hotshoe

You can easily see the 4 screws holding the hotshoe down. These weren't too tight on my hotshoe and were easily removed with a flat screwdriver in the absence of a suitable sized philips headed one (cross like the screws are). These screws need very few turns to be completely free of the body, they are very tiny. Here's a shot of the main hotshoe totally unscrewed and loose on top of the camera.

Be very careful with the screws as underneath the hotshoe is the hole to the inside of the rangefinder mechanism, its something i noticed when i was putting it back together but i wouldn't like to get a tiny screw falling into that. I kept the screws inside their holes in the hotshoe, here's a shot of it totally removed from the camera.

Which leaves you with a totally naked R-D1

Looking into the hole to the rangefinder mechanism is quite hard, its not THAT big a gap.. I never really got a good luck at the other screws, I saw what looked like the larger more prominent vertical rangefinder adjustment screw. Its on a different platform to the other screws and is off to the right of the hole. After much effort I managed to get an acceptably sharp shot of this screw so anyone who follows me wont have to take that leap of faith thinking is that the screw?!? I was a bit nervous as i couldn't see all the screws in the bottom clearly and didn't know if the right hand screw was actually one of the ones further down in the hole.

And here is another crop of the same image, focusing on just the screw itself. You can easily see the blue wire that i'd seen in the fully taken apart R-D1 shots at this page (http://www.imagere.com/paulwolff/rd1.htm)

You can also see the initial configuration of this screw.. its basically vertically oriented when you are holding the camera so left to right forms a horizontal.

My rangefinder patch image was slightly higher than the main image so i knew i wanted to move the patch down. From another thread here is the description of which direction to turn the screws to achieve a particular effect.

Left Screw (Horizontal Adjustment):
CW -> moves focus towards the front
CCW -> moves focus towards the back

Middle Screw (Infinity): ?? havent touched

Right Screw (Vertical Adjustment):
CW -> move patch down
CCW -> move patch up

So a small clockwise turn was all I needed. I ended up having to still use a smaller flat screwdriver than the actual size of the adjustment screw, this was so that i could actually rotate the screwdriver with it at an angle through that hole. I've ended up slightly scratching the screw in doing this but its only slight. I've got no viewfinder magnifier but I am much happier with where i adjusted it to. In the end it took a quarter turn clockwise to fix it.. so where as the screw before adjustment was vertically oriented, it is now horizontal with what was the top of that vertical line on the screw now being on the right of the horizontal line of the screw. Not quite a complete turn so its not exactly horizontal. Not that this matters just to give you full colour as to how much or how little is needed in completing the adjustment.

Happy with the change i delicately put the main hotshoe back on and screwed it gently in place. The sliding the cover back over the hotshoe and the job is finished.

In use now its nice as the images pop into focus much more convincingly where as before I had to only go by the vertical lines, seeing that any horizontal lines would always be blurred with the offset.

I never looked close enough but there are some small marks on the underside of the hotshoe cover where I was first trying to loosen the cover with the toothpicks.. It may have been there all the time, but its very minor anyways.. The main body is completely unscratched. It may have cost me 5 or 6 chopsticks but i think the fact that they were much softer than all the metals involved meant that they got damaged rather than the camera.

Anyways thats about it.. sorry if i've confused things with my fumbling explanation. I'm down with horrible flu at the moment, so not exactly thinking straight (and yes i tried to do this adjustment in such a state.. luckily its all worked and has distracted me away from the pain for a few 10s of minutes!! 🙂)

As has been explained elsewhere do be careful... you can damage your camera attempting this, but i have to say it was all about as easy as it could be.. nailing the removing of the cover would be nice.. hopefully i wont ever have to adjust it again, and perhaps i've loosened it a bit in doing what i assume is the first calibration of the camera since it was built.

The images are on my website as i wasn't sure if they were too big to upload as attachments. I wont be deleting them anytime soon but if it is ok to upload them as attachments that would be great to make this HOWTO more self contained. Also think it'd be nice to make this post sticky so other users dont have to go searching for it?

Anyways will have more of a check with better light and more distant subjects when i'm feeling better. Thank god its done with no major problems 🙂

 

[Sukiari]

Thanks!

Thanks!

Thanks a lot. My first R-D1 went back because of horribly maladjusted vertical alignment, and my current one is developing the same problem.

I don't relish the bill I'm sure Epson would send me for repair (actually replacement) for this minor problem - you saved me a lot of future headache!

 

[jlw]

Thanks for the thorough documentation and pics. I tried to take a picture of that gray screw myself, and your results are much better than I got!

One clarification that may make this easier for other people: When lifting the metal cover out of the hot shoe, DO NOT try to pry both front and back at once! Instead, insert the toothpicks at both sides of the rear edge and pry the cover BACK slightly -- then spring both sides of the rear edge upward. Once the rear edge is released, you can slide the cover forward enough to release the front edge easily.

If you try to pry up the front edge first, there won't be enough clearance to release the rear edge backwards, which is what is needed to allow the two small "lips" on the back edge to come free of the shoe itself.

I'm attaching a hugely simplified diagram showing the parts in side view, to illustrate the motions needed. Again, I'm just trying to make this part clearer for other people who may tackle this job.

 

[LCT]

Congrats folks!
It's easier to do it than to explain and illustrate it obviously.
Best,
LCT

 

[jimbobuk]

JLW, thanks for that diagram... i was considering doing the same diagram just now.. I've had to go back in and adjust the alignment this morning.. wierd too.. I realise now that i was quite lucky to get the cover off as it was hard again this morning.. i eventually nailed the idea of coming at the sides of the cover under the tabs being able to lever them backwards and out of their ledge, to do your step 1.. then to go underneath the left side of the cover (staying well clear of the hole into the rangefinder mechanism) with a toothpick towards the back pushes it back and up your step 3. Rather than starting from the back of the cover here coming more from the flash terminal in the middle seemed to work better for me here.

I've left the cover off at the moment.. is this ok to do? I do have an auxilery viewfinder for my 15mm lens.. i can see the sprung edges of the cover that presumably help grip any flash attachment into the hotshoe.. I will try a bit later to see how this works without the cover.

The cover to me looks like a purely cosmetic piece.. also removing easily wondered about screws from the average end user. I will keep it off for a few days till i'm happy with the alignment.

I am sure that i wouldn't scratch the cover and slightly the hotshoe like i have done if i'd realised the correct process of getting it off.. hopefully now this page is complete with the RIGHT way to do it 🙂

Bizarely the adjustment was quite a lot out the other way this morning. The patch image was now below the rest of the image. Focusing on more distant objects seems to make any difference more obvious.. to a point anyways, as objects get more distant they become more smaller that its harder to see any subtle misalignment. I'm considering getting one of the viewfinder magnifiers perhaps for every day use anyways but defintely to help be confident the alignment is spot on. Where can I buy one of these magnifiers, what are they called, and how do they fit? i can see a thread on the inside of the rubber eye piece border, its surely not using this is it?

Having readjusted the alignment the strange thing is i'm back to where i was before starting.. near vertical screw rotation. I know there is some play in your eye position but there is a sweet spot where the patch is much brighter than elsewhere so you can't drift too far out without suffering this dimming. Its definitely been adjusted twice to make a big difference.. The only thing i can think is that over use and especially in transit its been knocked out of alignment.. somehow fixing this last night (and also not focusing on distant objects) has led to one setting, which after a night of settling somehow the mechanism is more happy and working as it should, such that the adjustment to fix takes it close to where it was.

Thats why i am going to keep the hotshoe cover off incase it drifts again.. really hope it doesn't as obviously that could be a different problem. I like to think that some kind of knocking out of position during transit is more likely and perhaps could account for why there are so many rangefinder alignment problems.. perhaps the mechanism isn't very shock tolerant and is capable of being adjusted by those knocks.. when you then recalibrate after an amount of turning the mechanism becomes more coupled with the screws and back into spec. Maybe i'm going insane though 🙂

 

[jimbobuk]

refresh this page as i've changed the picture with the directions of toothpick levering to be more inline with what i now think is the better way of doing it. Doing this to complete jlw's order of lifting it off seems about right..

 

[Sean Reid]

Wow...thanks to everyone who has contributed information about this process. Both of my R-D1s have been slightly out of vertical alignment since new and I've always just ignored it. I finally decided I should try this before sending a camera to DAG. Once I got the right screwdriver, it took perhaps 15 minutes and the alignment now seems to be perfect. I'm just hoping that I didn't throw anything else off when I changed this screw. The pictures of the process and jlw's diagram were extremely helpful. I'll do the other body later today and then do focus tests as soon as I get time. I would recommend trying this for anyone who's even slightly comfortable working with tools.

Just a tools note. Even a #0 phillips head screw driver is too large for those hotshoe screws but a 1.2 mm flathead worked just fine for both the hotshoe screws and the adjustment screw itself. The toothpicks work like a charm so long as one is willing to break a few.

Why didn't I do this months ago? You know, as a man who does his own motorcycle maintenance, etc. it's really a pleasure to have a digital camera that i can actually make work better with a screwdriver. Long live mechanical parts.

Thanks,

Sean

 

[jlw]

I don't know that this will apply to everyone, but another pleasant surprise for me has been that once I got the vertical alignment the way I wanted it, it has stayed put ever since -- something like seven months now. I'm hoping this will be a trend!

 

[Sean Reid]

Boy, that would be wonderful. I got the second body adjusted in about five minutes. It's great!

S

 

[rbrooks]

Spoke with a repairman who's worked on cameras for a long time. It seems the bessa and epson rangefinders use weak brass in those little adjustment screws and I suppose in the other parts of the rangefinder mech. So the risk is if you start screwing around with them too much they might lose their grip or drift later or whatever. A kind of screw loose maybe? I dunno. Mine's the tinniest bit off vertical and I was thinking of doing the toothpick trick but I'm just going to live with it for now as it isnt really all that bad. And how much of it come from just not looking at it straight on? So it's hard to say. Basically we'll have to wait for the Leica digital until we get a high quality rangefinder part.

 

[berci]

Does anyone attempted it with an XPan?

 

[Sean Reid]

rbrooks,

The "screwing around" we're doing is turning the same screw that a repair person would use to set vertical alignment. I doubt that metal fatigue would develop from turning a screw. Many people here made this adjustment over a year ago and the cameras are just fine. Ed S. for example.

Sean

 

[Mark Norton]

Thanks to the information here, I've fixed mine. A bit less than 1/8 of a turn clockwise to correct the rangefinder patch image being, maybe, 1/10 of its height too high. Thanks guys!

I think it's worth taping over the hole for an afternoon before the hot shoe goes back, go out and take some pictures, I found I wanted to make a further tiny adjustment after I did thatand obviously the less times the hot shoe comes off, the better.

Mine actually has some slight tilt as well, so the left is now a fraction low, the right a fraction high, but a big improvement on what was shipped.

Of course we'd like it to be perfect but the Bessa 3a on which this camera is based is, what 1/5?, 1/6? of the price of an M7.

 

[Mark Norton]

I was interested in JimBobUK's pictures - his camera has serial number 3559 - mine, bought in the UK 2 days ago, is less than 3635, less than 80 different. Does make you wonder how many of these things they are selling.

 

[LCT]

...I doubt that metal fatigue would develop from turning a screw...

So do I.
Now it is well possible that the screw becomes less tight and then more prone to turn by itself...
Just a guess.
Best,
LCT

 

[lightwriter]

So do I.
Now it is well possible that the screw becomes less tight and then more prone to turn by itself...
Just a guess.
Best,
LCT

They do. But you can put a small drop of loctite between the screw head and plate to keep it from backing out on it's own. I prefer the blue stuff...can't remember the number. I can go look if anyone is interested.

Of course, my problem is that after the shutter fires, the RF patch becomes misaligned again. This is b/c my RF has backlash.

 

[Sean Reid]

That's really strange. Are you still under warranty?

My newer R-D1 rode all day in it's case in the trunk of the motorcycle and it's alignment still seems perfect.

Cheers,

Sean

 

[rvaubel]

My rangefinder has maintained alignment thru regular jostling and handling. The loctite you refer to as the "blue stuff" is blue and the ONLY loctite you should consider using to hold a screw. If you use the "green" stuff THE SCREW WILL NEVER MOVE AGAIN.
Nail polish works too.
Rex

 

[rvaubel]

My rangefinder has maintained alignment thru regular jostling and handling. The loctite you refer to as the "blue stuff" is blue and the ONLY loctite you should consider using to hold a screw. If you use the "green" stuff THE SCREW WILL NEVER MOVE AGAIN.
Nail polish works too.
Rex

 

[pfogle]

I adjusted mine sometime in the middle of last year, and then again a couple of months later. It hadn't moved, it's just that on my camera the patch isn't exactly horizontal, so the vertical aligment depends slightly on the focus distance. I changed it from being exactly aligned when focused at infinity, to being spot on at portrait distance (around 6-8ft). It's never shifted since then.

For those out there who are reluctant to adjust theirs, I'd like to add that, when it is exactly on, you do get that 'focus pop' of clarity when the images line up, which makes focusing a lot more confident in my case. You don't get the same effect of the focus popping in when the vertical alignment is off.

Any one else find this?

cheers
Phil