Bessa T rangefinder view

[cwratten]

Does the view through the Bessa T rangefinder correspond roughly to any focal length? In other words, is there a lens that you could use the rangefinder as the viewfinder (except for precise composition)?
Thanks.
Craig

 

[drewbarb]

The view through the T is really unusable as a viewfinder. The openings- and thus the view- are the round, and the RF patch covers around 80% of it. It might corospond to a 250-300mm lens; even if you could find such a thing and wanted to use it, the shape is all wrong- you would only get a vague sense of the framing. You're much better off using seperate finders. I use my T mostly for my 21mm lens, where the finder is no problem. I can generally Zone or hyper-focus, and use the finder for framing, which makes it as fast to use as any other camera. The RF is there when I want or need precise focus. Even with longer lenses, I find the T is pretty fast and easy to use, and the long base and high magnification make for precise focusing. It's a great cheap back-up body.

 

[pvdhaar]

I wondered about this a couple of times, but two weeks ago actually took the effort to mount a zoom finder on the T and try it out.

If you don't move your eye around, the circular RF image corresponds roughly to a 135mm field of view, with of course the caveats that it's a tad higher and a wee bit narrower.

 

[laptoprob]

When I had the T I have used the rf as vf for the 200mm. Imagine a rectangle within the circle. A 135mm is roughly a rectangle outside the rf circle.
It works but it's not very practical, especially in guessing horizontals.