Anyone masked a russian 35mm finder to get a FOV of 50?

[Will]

Hi,

Anyone masked a russian 35mm finder to get a 50mm FOV ?

Would like to get some advice to get a mask done..

Any advice welcome.








Will

 

[ErnestoJL]

HI Will,
Not exactly what you ask, but I´ve been playing with a toy camera VF which "normal lens" FOV matches one of a 35 mm lens. This VF, if reversed, covers a little more than a 135mm lens FOV, then a small mask in the viewing side will do the trick.

If you have a 35mm VF, then it would be quite easy to mask it if you remember that a 35 covers about 63 deg. in the diagonal of the neg. and a 50 mm normal lens about 46 deg.
I used a SLR body and 35 and 135 mm lenses to make the checks, plus a measuring tape affixed to a white paper piece held in the wall ( I´ve measured FOV horizontally and vertically, marked the paper and then by trial and error cut the mask).
The mask can be done with a piece of polyestyrene painted matt black, and placed in front of the VF. Affixing it on the VF is another issue, as it depends on if the VF is round or square.

In your case, the mask should be placed in front of the VF so to limit the FOV available, mine is just the opposite.

Hope it helps!!
Cheers,
Ernesto

 

[andrealed]

Hi Will, my best buy on ebay was not a camera but a viewfinder, I was looking for a 50mm viewfinder and I decided to give a try to the old Imarect from Leica, well, this is not true actually, because I won a Walz copy of the imarect, it was cheap and it's so good that now I keep it on every camera I shoot with (I was tempted to stick it on my pentax srl too...go figure..). My problem was that the big viewfinders (SLR too) were giving to me the effect to seeing a movie on the first seats of the theater: id est you have to go from corner to corner without really "seeing" the composition. Now the black sharp borders of the Imarect and the distant view really are helping me to focus on the composition as a whole: you "see" the picture as it will come much more than using frames, lines or srl big viewfinders too. If you have the same problem as me (and the kind of solution you are asking for tells me that), I rather ask you to give a try to the imarect before (or a copy like walz), they come cheaply on ebay.
ciao
Andrea

 

[Will]

Thanks a lot for the advice...

Found a 1950s Voigtlander Kontur Finder in HK. I think I am getting it!

 

[andrealed]

Let us know your impressions about it!