Looking for a square-frame brightline viewfinder. Any 126 cameras out there have a decent finder I can adapt/cannibalize?

[justins7]

I am looking for a square cold-shoe mounted viewfinder for a 6x6 folding camera, to roughly cover the same field of view as a 75-80mm lens. I don't think any accessory viewfinders were made in square format other than expensive Hasselblad or Voigtlander ones, as far as I know. So I was thinking of finding an old, cheap 126 camera, taking out the finder and then rebuilding it as cold-shoe viewfinder using 3D-printed parts. So this would be a DIY/hack project. I've successfully done this with 35mm format finders before — cannibalized from old point-and-shoot cameras — and now I want to make one for a 6x6 folder.

I have a Kodak Instamatic 500 but the finder is quite dim.

Any creative suggestions are appreciated! Thanks.

 

[Vince Lupo]

How about this?

Voigtlander Kontur 6x6 Viewfinder working order | eBay

Find many great new & used options and get the best deals for Voigtlander Kontur 6x6 Viewfinder working order at the best online prices at eBay! Free shipping for many products!

www.ebay.ca

 

[Vince Lupo]

BTW there's also the Zeiss Ikon 433/16 finder that's square. View's a bit so-so.

 

[WoodallP]

I am looking for a square cold-shoe mounted viewfinder for a 6x6 folding camera, to roughly cover the same field of view as a 75-80mm lens. I don't think any accessory viewfinders were made in square format other than expensive Hasselblad or Voigtlander ones, as far as I know. So I was thinking of finding an old, cheap 126 camera, taking out the finder and then rebuilding it as cold-shoe viewfinder using 3D-printed parts. So this would be a DIY/hack project. I've successfully done this with 35mm format finders before — cannibalized from old point-and-shoot cameras — and now I want to make one for a 6x6 folder.

I have a Kodak Instamatic 500 but the finder is quite dim.

Any creative suggestions are appreciated! Thanks.

Hi,

When you say expensive Voigtlander ones , which ones are you referring to in particular? I have a Voigtlander Kontur 6x6 and it works well. Konturs, can be very expensive or next to nothing as most people assume them to be broken because they cannot see through them. It is not a bright line finder, instead it uses a Jedi mind trick, but once you have the hang of it it works very well. The 6x6 is rarer then the 35mm (50mm lens) and 6x9 ones but probably not as rare as the 35mm (35mm lens) one.

The 6x6 was in a batch of four that I bought for fifteen pounds recently.

P.S. I left my reply open so long that I was beaten to it 🙂

 

[Glenn2]

The frame lines on the Kontur finder are just on a thin piece of plastic. It should be easy to make a replacement any format/ focal length you want. There is some distortion in the eye piece of the Konturs so the mask frame lines have a slight curve to compensate.

I have thought of using something like Kodalith film to make masks, but directly printing on a transparent material might be easier.
On another thread I mentioned developing a digital version. Why hasn’t some company done that?

 

[FrozenInTime]

The Hasselblad folding sports finder 43028 can be found for <$20 .

 

[justins7]

I looked into the Kontur finder but so far I have not been able to find one for less than ~$170. I haven't ever seen one in person but it seems like it would be easy to make one. Is it just white frame lines on a black background?

Making my own brightline finders for 35mm and 6x9 120 formats has been successful and a fun project. There are people online who make 3D printed housing files available for 28 and 35. But now I am looking into the 6x6 square format.

Thanks!

 

[zeitz]

With Kontur you see the subject with the other eye. The eye with the finder only sees the frame line, which is a transparent box on a black background. (The transparent box can be tinted when one finder covers two focal lengths.) Your brain combines the subject and line. Kontur very interesting to use.

Robot had a square format, and there were viewfinders in various focal lengths made for Robot. But you are competing with supply and demand from collectors.

 

[WoodallP]

I looked into the Kontur finder but so far I have not been able to find one for less than ~$170. I haven't ever seen one in person but it seems like it would be easy to make one. Is it just white frame lines on a black background?

Making my own brightline finders for 35mm and 6x9 120 formats has been successful and a fun project. There are people online who make 3D printed housing files available for 28 and 35. But now I am looking into the 6x6 square format.

Thanks!

There is an optical component too, I haven't taken one apart to take a closer look though.

 

[Vince Lupo]

I looked into the Kontur finder but so far I have not been able to find one for less than ~$170. I haven't ever seen one in person but it seems like it would be easy to make one. Is it just white frame lines on a black background?

Making my own brightline finders for 35mm and 6x9 120 formats has been successful and a fun project. There are people online who make 3D printed housing files available for 28 and 35. But now I am looking into the 6x6 square format.

Thanks!

That one I posted above is like 29 GBP / $55 CDN. Of course there’s shipping on top of that, but should be less than $170.

 

[shawn]

There is an optical component too, I haven't taken one apart to take a closer look though.

I have several Konturs. I think that is mostly a close focus lens so that the framelines are essentially in focus when your other eye is focused at a distance. I bought a couple of lenses to try making something like a Kontur but haven't got around to it yet. Without the optics you get an out of focus/indistinct frameline image.

 

[justins7]

It seems like it would be simple enough to buy a Kontur finder for any focal length and then print your own framelines on transparency paper. I am going to try that.

 

[WoodallP]

It seems like it would be simple enough to buy a Kontur finder for any focal length and then print your own framelines on transparency paper. I am going to try that.

The lines are quite small and fine. I was wondering if photographing (and reducing) a laser print onto high contrast film would be the way to go; I suspect most of us have the equipment for that 😊 A panoramic version would probably appeal to many.

 

[Godfrey]

The Voigtländer Kontur finder is the first thing that came to mind. I have the one for the Perkeo II ... 6x6 with an 80mm focal length lens. It works extremely well.

A square frame field finder for 40 and 75 mm lenses was made for Robot cameras ... There's one available on Ebay at present for about $110 or so:

✅ ROBOT CAMERA FRAME SPORTS FINDER *RARE* 40MM WIDE ANGLE 75MM TELE LENSES 62-2 | eBay

65x47x12mm in size when folded.

www.ebay.com

G

 

[justins7]

I did not know about the Robot finder. That's pretty nifty!

 

[shawn]

I did not know about the Robot finder. That's pretty nifty!

» Robot Shoe Mount 30-150 Viewfinder

www.natcam.com

 

[Oren Grad]

If you can live without the bright lines, Ethan Moses (Cameradactyl) can make 3D printed viewfinders in custom focal length / aspect ratio combinations:

CUSTOM BUTTER FINDER VIEWFINDER — CAMERADACTYL 4.0

Also: I wonder how difficult it would be to add bright lines to an existing wider-format viewfinder to crop it down to a square.

 

[Garden Maniac]

I have a royal robot external viewfinder finder that I got at a market many years ago - I'm assuming it was made for a royal robot 24. I am not sure what lens it was made for, but it seems to cover the same field of view as my rolleiflex MX-EVS with 75mm lens

I thought it would be fun to pocket and sort of use as a preview when out and about with my rolleiflexes but it pretty much just stays at home. I can't find any information about it browsing the web but I'm thinking maybe it could be useful to you.

Its a nice bright view finder (no bright lines but very clear frame) and seeing that I can't find any information on it I assume it's rare. I would be willing to sell it for a hundred dollars, and i'd be comfortable sending it to you first so that you could see if it's a good fit for your purpose before accepting any money other than the price of shipping. I don't want to break any forum rules so if the moderators would prefer me to make a classified listing for it for this purpose I would be willing to do that.

Please feel free to PM me if you are interested and mods please let me know if you would prefer me to make a listing for it.

 

[BillBingham2]

While it's a long shot, have you checked Temu or AliExpress?