Mamiya 7 (Diopter Question) & Discussion

[davesuals]

Hello everyone, I recently got my Mamiya 7 and i'm in love with it...
I only have one issue and it has been bothering me for a while now.

So looking through my rangefinder from what I can see.. its clear, but as i'm looking down towards the bottom for the light meter... the red meter LED which indicates my shutter seconds are very blurry... I can barely read the numbers unless I squint really hard which gives me a big headache.

I researched online and saw there are Diopter Lenses for the range finder. The only one I can find available on the internet right now is a -2 for "near sighted" people.

Would you guys suggest I get this to fix the problem? Or is there something else I should be knowing.
Also, how do I remove the original diopter that is already placed in the Mamiya?

Note: I wear prescribed glasses and am nearsighted.

Help would be great. Thank you.

 

[john_s]

There isn't a diopter that needs to be removed. The adjusting diopters have a thin black plastic frame that snaps into grooves that are already there in the viewfinder.

Your eyeglass prescription is a guide to the diopter you need (minus ones for shortsightedness). The Mamiya ones come in 1.0 diopter increments, not fine enough for some of us older shortsighted people. Leica have 0.5 diopter increments, at least in the lower value range.

Ideally you would try a couple of possible values and pick which works best. If that isn't practical, I would pick the nearest lower value minus from the range, i.e. if your prescription is -1.5 I would suggest -1.0. Too strong is uncomfortable in my experience. If your prescription has significant astigmatism (cylindrical value) choosing an off the shelf diopter is more problematical.

As I age my -1.5 has gone down to -0.75 which is common (age 70).

 

[EdSawyer]

What John_s said. I use a -1 in mine, it works out great, that is the same as the prescription I have for distance glasses. I found mine on ebay, there's a seller that has a lot of new-old-stock Mamiya stuff including bascially all the diopter variants.