External viewfinders with 1:1 magnification

[hoot]

Hey,

does anyone know of the existence of external (hot shoe) viewfinders with life-size magnification, for shooting with both eyes open? I'm especially interested in such viewfinders for wide lenses (28mm or wider). Any information would be of help. Thanks!

 

[laptoprob]

I only know of them in 50 and 75 mm. Not in wide angle. That is the reason the M3 1:1 viewfinder is limited to 50mm framelines.

It would be interesting though!

 

[tom_f77]

Are you aware of the Ikodot finder?

http://www.ikodot.com/takealook.html

I think this might be as close as you'll get to a 1:1 wide-angle finder. I don't have one, but I always kind of liked the idea...

Tom

 

[former member]

The Canon P and Nikon S3 (and S4) have 1x viewfinders for 35mm Lens FOV. The Leica M3 has a 0.92x finder, but goes to 50mm FOV with auto-parallax correction. I do not know of any 1x optical 28mm finders, either external or built-in. That is a wide FOV, and the "sports sight" as suggested above is a good solution.

 

[aizan]

topcon made one for 35mm.

 

[Roman]

Wow, that Topcon finder is huge...
Ronnie, as you can see, size is the reason why 1:1 finders for wide-angles are not the most common items in the world - once you get wider that 28mm, those finders would get bigger than quite a few cameras...

Roman

 

[hoot]

Are you aware of the Ikodot finder?

http://www.ikodot.com/takealook.html

I think this might be as close as you'll get to a 1:1 wide-angle finder. I don't have one, but I always kind of liked the idea...

Tom

Whoa! This is just what I need. $99 is pretty steep for a piece of wire, though... has anyone got one for sale?

 

[wyk_penguin]

probably you could make one yourself. The idea is to put a 24X36mm wire frame 50 mm from your eyes to get a 50mm lens' field of view.

 

[jlw]

Are you aware of the Ikodot finder?

http://www.ikodot.com/takealook.htmlTom

Cool! And when you're not using it as a viewfinder, you probably can convince people it's the antenna for your camera's WiFi interface...

 

[tom_f77]

Whoa! This is just what I need. $99 is pretty steep for a piece of wire, though... has anyone got one for sale?

It does seem a lot, but I suppose it does have totally distortion free optics... 😀

 

[rover]

I like that Ikodot. Thanks for the link.

 

[former member]

The original "sports finders" for 35mm cameras are rare and expensive. $99 is cheap compared to what they go for. I do not know if the Retina sports finder covers 28mm, or any of the other "less-known" brands. If they do, they go for less than Leica or Nikon. But they usually fetch over $100.