Can we modify this camera? Framelines

[driggett]

I was wondering with all this talk about self service rf tuning and that the top plate can be taken off by experienced RF repair people I was wondering if one could add frame lines? I was thinking of getting a 75 or 90mm lens and would hate to have to look away to frame the shoot. I know the selector is 50 or 35 or 28 but I was wondering if we could make that dual purpose just like Leica's. There would be a 28/75, 35/90 and a 50 frameline combos. I wonder if this is doable? Has anybody actually looked at the frameline construction to see if this is possible. Just a thought. If it is it could bring a lot of work DAG's way or any other qualified RF repair person.
What do you think?
Cheers,
Chris

 

[mtokue]

Chris,
If you're open to a simple, cheap and temporary DIY solution then
What I did a couple of days ago was the following:
I wanted to have a more accurate way to compose a 135mm elmar
So I went out and got a "Screen Protector" the one I got was for a PDA
and cost about 2pounds (3.50 US)
I then cut a piece to fit the viewfinder window at the front took a
photograph with the lens in question, looked at the image on the LCD
and with a thin pen, penned in the corners of the FOV.
A little tricky at first but with a little patience and effort ....
I then had the "Frame " for the 135.
When you dont need it anymore you can just pull it off.
no damage or gunkleft on the view finder window plus it acts as a protector!
with the sheet I purchased I think I can make about 14 of them
so quite reasonable. I found that if applied carefully then it doesn't seem to
effect the focusing abilities that much either.
Just a bit of playing around but it worked for me..
If I could only find a 200mm viewfinder....

Mike.

 

[jlw]

I was wondering with all this talk about self service rf tuning and that the top plate can be taken off by experienced RF repair people I was wondering if one could add frame lines? I was thinking of getting a 75 or 90mm lens and would hate to have to look away to frame the shoot. I know the selector is 50 or 35 or 28 but I was wondering if we could make that dual purpose just like Leica's. There would be a 28/75, 35/90 and a 50 frameline combos. I wonder if this is doable? Has anybody actually looked at the frameline construction to see if this is possible. Just a thought. If it is it could bring a lot of work DAG's way or any other qualified RF repair person.
What do you think?
Cheers,
Chris

The mask that creates the framelines is tiny (about the size of the frosted window on the front of the camera) and I believe it's made of thin metal.

So, to do this, you'd have to measure and cut very neatly and very accurately. I would think that a miniature machinist (see this page for some examples) would be able to do this kind of work, so if you could bring together a camera technician prepared to do the disassembly and reassembly with a machinist who was willing to do the cutting, you'd probably be able to get it done. I suspect it would would up being a pretty expensive project, though...

 

[Sean Reid]

I can see it coming...this is going to be the cob digital camera of all time. I happen to love cobbing in its many forms and the simplicity of this camera rather encourages experimentation from those of us so inclined. Please include pictures of your work.

Cheers,

Sean

 

[pfogle]

Sean... I haven't heard this word 'cob' before - can you give me the origin? I guess it's like hacking, or customizing?

cheers
Phil

 

[Sean Reid]

The word is in common use among traditional Vermonters (I was born in northern Vermont) and I don't know the origin but now I need to find out. It basically refers to home-made solutions and repairs. Some use it in a derogatory way but I like to think of it as carrying on a very old tradition that dates back at least as early as colonial America when the colonial settlers needed to invent their own solutions to various tasks because the tools and resources they might normally use were far away in Europe. Thus, I think cobbing, done well, is an honorable practice. Spending money to solve something is effective but it isn't very interesting. Creative solutions, as awful as they may sometimes be, are far more interesting to me.

An anecdote...in addition to being a photographer, I run a motorcycle touring company. In 2003 we did a big corporate tour for Daimler Chrysler. There was a problem with the way the windshield mounts worked on some of the BMWs we had contracted for the tour (just bad design by BMW) such they kept popping loose. One of the DC VPs was on the tour: a large, tall, bald, wonderful guy who had lived in VT years before. I cobbed a repair for the BMWs which just delighted him and we talked about it for days. In addition to being an influential powerhouse corporate guy, he had the same respect for the great tradition of cobbing that I do.

Cheers,

Sean

 

[Sean Reid]

It looks like the term may have been adapted from mining and evolved to have a different colloquial meaning. In mining:

http://www.geocities.com/teammanley/Mineterms/DefinitionsC.htm

The key, I think, is that the process was done by hand. Hence, I'm guessing, the name came to be used for handmade solutions, repairs, etc.

Cheers,

Sean

 

[Jim Watts]

In the U.K. we use the word Cobble meaning put together roughly as in "Cobbled Together" meaning to use any available bits you have to make something that will work.

I think this comes from Cobbler i.e.Shoe repairer who would use any available bits of leather to patch up and repair shoes. Oxford Dictionary also defines the word as Clumsey Workman, but I'm sure there are none of these in this forum about to attack their R-D1's. 😉

 

[pfogle]

Sean thanks for the etymology - what a link, from Vermont ad hoc craftsmanship to Cornish tin mines. What a world!

cheers
Phil

 

[Dan Lazin]

Little to do with cameras, but words are even better than images, aren't they? My vote is for the verb/adjective "cob," as Sean uses it, being derived from the cob house -- cob the noun being, as the Oxford English Dictionary puts it, "A composition of clay (marl, or chalk), gravel, and straw, used, esp. in the south-west of England, for building walls, etc."

Cob houses are built by hand and are about as improvisational as you can get, generally with lovely but impractical organic curves. Makes sense the word could have become genericized into the "make it work however you must" usage Sean describes, particularly in New England, which has strong British heritage. There are probably even some dedicated ecologically minded people still building with cob in Vermont today, as there are on the islands of British Columbia.

Funnily, though, the OED doesn't list a use of cob in the way Sean describes, despite ten entries for the word as a noun and three as a verb. Too local to have caught the editors' attention, I guess.

Found this thread while reading old posts about external finders for the R-D1, by the way.