Finder for Tri-Elmar WATE

[redsky]

Hi,
I am planning on using my new acquired WATE with my typ 240 in hyperfocal distance, and I need a viewfinder solution. I find the Universal (Franken) finder that comes with the lens too large, and I don't want to use live view.

I will be using the lens mostly in 16mm and 21mm. So, I've been considering one of these two options:

- Getting a Voigtlander 15mm finder, using the lines as 16mm, and sort of eyeballing the 21mm inner frame.

- Getting a Zeiss / Leica 18mm finder, using the extent of the full window as 16mm, and imagining the lines to be a little tighter as a guide to 21mm.

Has anybody here adopted one of these two solutions (or a third one) and can tell me whether they are reasonably effective?

Thanks

 

[Gary B]

As new owner, 3-4 weeks, of a M240 M-P I think that you should take a look at the Leica EVF or find used/new Olympus VF-2. The finder works great with the wides that I have and gives you the correct crop.

 

[icebear]

+1, I see why someone doesn't want to use live view on the camera's rear screen but to buy an optical finder for a camera that has the option to stick an EVF on and see the exact field of view captured by the lens as opposed to some indicative frame lines🙄 ???

 

[redsky]

EVF doesn't work with thumbs up.
Between the two I prefer the thumbs up and an optical finder :/

+1, I see why someone doesn't want to use live view on the camera's rear screen but to buy an optical finder for a camera that has the option to stick an EVF on and see the exact field of view captured by the lens as opposed to some indicative frame lines🙄 ???

 

[pechelman]

i dont blame you at all for not wanting to use EVF\LV. The resulting shooting lag is just not really fun.

it all depends on how much you want framelines and how accurate you want framing to be i suppose

the frankenfinder is quite nice but a bit large. im not sure anything will be more accurate especially since it has parallax adjustment. I have a CV 15mm finder with the metal foot that's actually quite bright & nice, but I'm not really sure how valuable it would be to me to use as a stand-in for a 21mm finder unless i found a way to add framelines or a mask of some sort. There's also quite a bit of distortion that I think trying to estimate 21mm would be even more difficult than you might think. (however, if you want a 15mm finder, I'm not using mine and would sell it cheaply)

there are other finders out there you can switch between, all with unique features or issues.

What i might recommend, but would require some more research on your end, would be to look at the available 21mm finders out there and compare the magnifications to see what might actually present a full frame view of 16mm. Then, as you say, you can use the finder window edges as a 16mm guide and then you have a 21mm frameline you can trust.

Also, while not quite perfect, I think the inside of the corners of a 21mm viewfinder frameline might be reasonably close to representing the "rule of 3rds" intersection points, so that could be another helpful guide in composing at 16mm.