DIY Waist level finder help

[Yoricko]

Any idea where I can find that a 'weird thing' (in the drawing) or something similar to glue a pentaprism on to?

Cheers ...

 

[RobVinc]

Get an old hot-shoe flash unit, or maybe just the lowerpart of an Metz MCA adapert unit with the hot-shoe..

Otherwise I think it would not be too difficult to cut some plastic or wood for the hot-shoe part and get an angle bracket used for DIY wood working from the home store or similar..

 

[ferider]

Cool project. Where do you get the prism from ?

Reg. your question, start from something like 280706252824@ebay, add a bracket ?

Good luck,

Roland.

 

[Particular]

I have made an angle finder from parts salvaged from a yashica t4. I made a new housing and accessory shoe for the parts from brass stock from a model shop. I have made a 35mm finder like this in the past with parts from a cheap compact. I cut and file the parts in to shape and then solder them. It is a rather tedious job though. Alternatively I would scour ebay for some broken accessory that you can take the shoe off of.
I am interested in your source for the pentaprism. This should work better than the t4 parts I used. They firstly were a pain to extract, and secondly the view is too small, and reversed like in a Rollei.
Another option if you know any 3d cad (sketchup will do) is to do 3d printing. I have been using Shapeways, and am about to try Ponoko.
http://www.shapeways.com/
http://www.ponoko.com/

 

[besk]

http://www.shapeways.com/[/url]
http://www.ponoko.com/

I salvaged a pentaprism from a non functioning/beat up Nikon F2 meter finder for another project.

Adapting the waistlevel finder from an old Kodak Starflex would make a better finder in my opinion. Those cameras are cheap on EBay. Youl will still need a "foot."

 

[nemo2]

Why do you need the pentaprism?

 

[rbiemer]

I am interested in your source for the pentaprism.

Here is one possible source:

http://www.surplusshed.com
I have bought some stuff from these folks and they are good to deal with.

Rob

 

[axiom]

Pretty drawing

 

[Steve M.]

I would stop w/ just the drawing. You nailed it. Any actual construction would be lesser.

 

[Elektrojänis]

If the pentaprism is not too heavy, this could give you some ideas: http://photo.net/casual-conversations-forum/00CSnG

The plastic would be easy to cut to a suitable form you get allmost ready made form for the shoe. 🙂

 

[séamuis]

Why do you need the pentaprism?

my thoughts exactly. is this to be a waist level finder or an eye level finder?

 

[Particular]

L to R, a Zeiss angle-finder, my finder with Yashica T4 optics, and the real thing, a Leica AUFSU. The AUFSU uses a prism in stead of a mirror, and is therefor not reversed left to right (to answer the question above).
The Leica is the most usable, but to be honest I am not convinced I have gotten any shots I would not otherwise get using these.