llla + 50mm accessory viewfinder practicable ?

J

Jimbo035

James M Turner
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Having recently bought a llla with a 50/1.5 Sonnar, I have been offered a Leitz 50mm accessory viewfinder (aka SBOOI as no doubt many of you know) which I would like.
But on a llla its obviously going to be mounted further away from the lens than it 'should be' but not so far as to render it impracticable (I hope).

Words of assurance from users who have already faced this predicament eagerly awaited.
 
There will be some parallax error. Fortunately, these lenses don't focus really close, so if you don't frame too tightly, you will be fine.

The bigger problem with a Sonnar is getting things in focus wide open.
 
Do you wear glasses? About the only reason not to use the internal finder for 50mm is that it scratches glasses and has a very low eyepoint. But as it has the rangefinder inside, you will still have to wrestle with it, so there is very little to be gained by adding a 50mm aux finder.
 
The accessory finder is exactly what the screw mount bodies need to make their use more enjoyable.
 
I tried an SBOOI on my IIIf and found it didn't correspond closely enough to what was recorded on film, sadly, as the view through it was lovely and large and bright. Maybe I like to compose too tightly, but I gave up on the SBOOI and went back to using the tiny but more accurate built-in viewfinder.
 
Luckily the camera still has its viewfinder eyepiece's black enamel/enamelled ring in place so I'm not too worried about scratching my glasses - which I wear all the time. No great difficulty in using the rangefinder, but some when framing, hence the desire for a SBOOI, particularly as I had one long ago for a Leica lllc. It's just the height of the Contax llla compared with a lla (which I perceived as alternative) raising the SBOOI further away from the lens that concerned me .... but providing I take due care it "don't really matter"
Camera viewfinder for focusing - SBOOI for framing it shall be.

Thanks all, for your responses.
 
Jimbo035 said:
Words of assurance from users who have already faced this predicament eagerly awaited.
Click to expand...

The viewfinder of the Contax IIIa is good enough, you don't need to use a SBOOI.

Unless yours is hazy and dirty.

Using a simple plumbing rubber gasket softly glued around the IIIa eyepiece will improve the contrast of the camera viewfinder (less reflections around the eyepiece when you'll look through it), and protect your glasses if you wear some. On my IIa, I use such a thing found by chance on the pavement, and it fits as if it was a genuine Zeiss eyepiece protector... ^^

When I still had and used my Contax IIIa (sold to a RFFer since), I could achieve close-up portraits with the 50/2 Sonnar and discovered that the camera viewfinder, albeit rather small and without framelines, was surprisingly accurate.
 
FrankS said:
If I remember correctly, the Contax camera viewfinder isn't much better than the screw mount Leica camera viewfinders.
Click to expand...

Well, it has the rangefinder inside - so "if I must switch viewports I may as well use a better finder" does not apply to the Contax. And the III/IIIa has more than the height of an entire Leica between its lens and accessory shoe, so the finder parallax is a fair amount worse.
 
I use the standard eyepiece for 50mm lenses and I wear glasses. I find it perfectly usable for normal photography.

I have the extra viewfinder attachment that clips onto the standard viewfinder for the 85 and 135. I actually prefer this to the cold shoe viewfinders since I still have use of the rangefinder inside the viewfinder.

I do use a Voigtlander 25mm that uses a standard cold shoe viewfinder, but focus is not an issue with that lens.
 
Whoops! I admit to thinking we were talking about a Leica IIIa, not a Contax IIIa. Silly old me...didn't read the fine print. All the more reason to stick with the built-in viewfinder, I think. The SBOOI would be a long way off-axis.
 
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