Lenses with focal length different that 50mm

[CaptainMike]

ie 35mm, 90mm, etc.

Correct me if I am wrong (I am fairly new to the RF thing), but these dont focus with the RF on my Zorki or Fed, right? What I mean is: the built in RF is always set to focus at 50mm, no?

Or am I completely off base here?

 

[rxmd]

You are completely off base here. Non-50mm lenses have a built-in focusing mechanism that takes care of the focal length difference.

 

[NathanJD]

The only thing that your Zorki or FED won't do is change the actual view through the viewfinder although the patch will show the correct focus.

Imagine a large rectangular box with a smaller box in it and then a smaller box in that one again. the widest box will be the edges of the photo for the widest of 3 lenses say 35mm with the next smallest being 50mm and then the smallest being the 90mm. in other cameras like Bessas and Leicas the viewfinder has 'framelines' inside it that show you where the edges of the picture will fall.

i find that the Zorki-4k shows you more or less 50mm through the viewfinder

 

[wolves3012]

Non-50mm lenses have a mechanical coupling that "translates" the lens focus to be what the camera expects from a 50mm lens. Beware that *some* LTM lenses are NOT suitable for the FSU cameras. If they don't have a tubular RF cam, they can jam on the body (all the FSU models do have the tubular cam though). Non-FSU lenses are also built to a slightly different focal-length standard too, so they may not focus accurately either. This gets worse with longer/faster lenses used wide-open and close-up.

Note also that some of the FSU lenses are often found mis-focussing too, usually due to poor servicing and sometimes due to poor quality-control at manufacture. The worst reputations are for the Jupiter 9 (85mm f/2) and Jupiter 3 (50mm f/1.5).

Any non-50mm lens will need an accessory finder for framing, or guesswork!

 

[CaptainMike]

Thanks, that clears that up.