Can R3A viewfinder be modified?

[Roma]

Hello film photography lovers!
I finally dove into rangefinder photography and shot my first few rolls of B&W with my R3A and a 40mm Nokton. I'm now testing pushing 400 speed films with different developers. I really like everything about this camera/lens combination except for seeing the entire frame of the viewfinder.
I don't wear glasses when I shoot and still have a hard time seeing everything within the frame lines.
I'm always moving my eye from top to bottom and from left to right to make sure that my photo is composed the way I want. As you all know, it's really easy to miss "the moment" if you hesitate and that's what happened to me. I was chasing "the moment" and ended up with some chopped feet or something else because I refused to scan the whole frame and just shot away. I'll post some photos in a day or 2 of my experience.
Have any of you done any modifications to the viewfinders to bring your eye closer to the frame lines or anything else I can do to see the whole viewfinder better😕 ? I also think that the bottom lines of the finder are very short (on the ends) and it's hard to compose at the bottom if your subject is closer to the lower middle of the frame.
Please post if you know of anything that I can do.
Otherwise, I really like to be mostly ignored by the people when I photograph with this camera as opposed to getting stares when I shoot with an SLR 😎

 

[ClaremontPhoto]

The 40mm framelines are very very close to the edge so I (and some other people here) ignore the fact we've got framelines and we use the full viewfinder area.

 

[clintock]

I don't have much luck with the 40mm framelines on the R3a either- hard to see all at once, and with the 90 marks in there too, sort of busy.. So when I use a 40 on the R3, I sometimes just use the 50 framelines instead.. Think a 50 with safety margins.
To me the hardest thing about the bessa bodies with combined view/range finders is keeping the rf spot visible. If my eye is in the wrong place, no rf spot- also the meter numbers display can be invisible on the r3a if I'm really not looking right.

 

[Roma]

Yes,
It's a bit hard to see the shutter speeds also, but I have a hard time complaining about it yet since I'm so new to the experience. I hope someone replies with with some modification suggestions.
In the mean time, I'll just learn to get used to it and I thank you Jon and Clintock for your responses.

 

[clintock]

I was able to see the shutter speeds better after i got a different (black) lens shade for my Nokton. As to modifying the optics of the finder to make the frameline etc appear further from the edge, I just don't know, I think such a thing would be quite involved..
Sounds like a great excuse to buy a leica CL body!

 

[jlw]

I found that if I tried to keep both eyes open, relax, and look straight forward, I could see the framelines with my peripheral vision. It's kind of a trance thing -- may not work for you, but worth trying.

I'd think that rather than trying to get involved in modifying an R3a viewfinder, it would make more sense to sell it to someone who wanted an R3a and use the money to buy an R2a instead. You don't get a 40mm finder frame with the R2a, but you might decide a 35mm frame is close enough.

 

[Roma]

Thanks for your replies JLW and Clintock. I haven't learned the R3A enough yet to have an excuse for the "ultimate" machine made by some German company, so I'll stick to what I have for now and see how it goes. I'm not sure if R2A is my answer either. I just thought that maybe someone modified theirs for the reasons I stated earlier. I'll try the relaxing/trance technique and see if it does it 🙂 I'm not sure if I'll miss shots that way or not, but it may put my subjects at more ease when I photograph them.