jagarch
Member
Leaving aside all practical matters like profit, ease of manufacturing, etc.
I have an idea for a device that could turn a scale focus camera into a rangefinder. It seems so simple that I'm sure folks have thought it up before, and maybe even attempted it, but i couldn't find any info on this forum. Maybe I'm looking up the wrong terms?
When you use an old camera with an accessory rangefinder, you focus the rangefinder. Then you translate the distance reading on the rangefinder to the distance scale on the lens. But couldn't you couple the distance readings together, mechanically?
The idea is this: take an old accessory rangefinder, like the Widor or the Voigtlander. These are shoe-mounted, and have a little wheel which you turn to find the focus. Mechanically connect this wheel to a lens, so that focusing the lens turns the wheel.
Obviously every lens is different. Even if you could make this work for only one lens, say a standard prime, this would be a very powerful tool. You could mount it on a EP-1 and make it into an actual digital rangefinder camera, for a fraction of the price of an M8.
Even better would be if you could find a way so that the mechanical coupling could be calibrated for any lens. You put the lens at infinity, calibrate the coupling, and then put the lens at its closest range and calibrate that.
If this was manufactured rather than cobbled together from existing parts, the rangefinder could include a viewfinder, and the whole thing, including lens, could be one unit.
I greatly simplified the mechanics in this mock-up, but is this possible?
I have an idea for a device that could turn a scale focus camera into a rangefinder. It seems so simple that I'm sure folks have thought it up before, and maybe even attempted it, but i couldn't find any info on this forum. Maybe I'm looking up the wrong terms?
When you use an old camera with an accessory rangefinder, you focus the rangefinder. Then you translate the distance reading on the rangefinder to the distance scale on the lens. But couldn't you couple the distance readings together, mechanically?
The idea is this: take an old accessory rangefinder, like the Widor or the Voigtlander. These are shoe-mounted, and have a little wheel which you turn to find the focus. Mechanically connect this wheel to a lens, so that focusing the lens turns the wheel.
Obviously every lens is different. Even if you could make this work for only one lens, say a standard prime, this would be a very powerful tool. You could mount it on a EP-1 and make it into an actual digital rangefinder camera, for a fraction of the price of an M8.
Even better would be if you could find a way so that the mechanical coupling could be calibrated for any lens. You put the lens at infinity, calibrate the coupling, and then put the lens at its closest range and calibrate that.
If this was manufactured rather than cobbled together from existing parts, the rangefinder could include a viewfinder, and the whole thing, including lens, could be one unit.
I greatly simplified the mechanics in this mock-up, but is this possible?