Mamiya 7: How Important is the External Viewfinder for the 43mm Lens?

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BardParker

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I have the Mamiya 7 with 80mm and 65mm lenses. I have really been wanting the 43mm lens for some time due to the spectacular images fellow RFF'ers are producing. KEH has one in EXC condition without viewfinder for $751 and same condition with finder for $1120. Is the finder that important for framing this ultra wide-angle lens on the Mamiya 7?

Regards,

Kent
 
Does it have parallax compensation can you tell? If it does, and if you will shoot a lot of near subjects, then it would be really helpful to have it (the viewfinder for Mamiya Universal 50mm f6.3 lens had it that I used all the time). If the viewfinder doesn't have the mechanism to compensate for parallax and/or you only shoot distant subjects, then you can pick up a cheap chinese viewfinder for 6x7 which should suffice.
 
As far as view finders go, I don't find the Mamiya 43mm to be a particularly good one compared to what you get from the likes of Zeiss, Leica, Voigtlander. However, I would not want to use the 43 mm lens without some sort of external viewfinder - Chinese or otherwise.
 
Mark T said:
As far as view finders go, I don't find the Mamiya 43mm to be a particularly good one compared to what you get from the likes of Zeiss, Leica, Voigtlander. However, I would not want to use the 43 mm lens without some sort of external viewfinder - Chinese or otherwise.
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The likes of Zeiss, Leica, Voigtlander are all of 3:2 ratio I believe. The Mamiya finder has its own point here.
 
BardParker said:
I have the Mamiya 7 with 80mm and 65mm lenses. I have really been wanting the 43mm lens for some time due to the spectacular images fellow RFF'ers are producing. KEH has one in EXC condition without viewfinder for $751 and same condition with finder for $1120. Is the finder that important for framing this ultra wide-angle lens on the Mamiya 7?

Regards,

Kent
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I would guess the internal VF is about 60mm to the edges. I am not sure how I could possibly frame anything without the AVF. Framing isn't 100% exact, but I've never been so horribly off that I have chopped off some significant detail.

That said, it's not a $400 item. I have seen quite a few on eBay (lens+VF) go for around $900.
 
The finder is great, when I still got the lens the build in spirit level helped me a lot to avoid falling or tilted lines. It has marks for close focus parallax compensation.
The only thing is: there is always much more on the frame then in the finder. 5% at least if not even more.
 
I have the 43 and I hate to think what I'd end up shooting if I duidn't have the viewfinder. The only fiddle is that you have to focus using the normal viewfinder on the camera body before composing using the viewfinder for the 43mm. Still, a minor issue as this is a seriously good lens, IMO.
 
It's better to buy the 43mm together with a finder, which is difficult to find on it's own and always expensive.

The finder is very useful, especially for subjects quite close. Besides giving you the proper field of view, it also gives you the perspective. The body finder doesn't do that. The finder also has a spirit level which is just as important as the view the finder provides.

Without the finder you can obviously still use the 43mm. You just have to compose with the entire finder in the body and allow that it is going to be just a loose approximation. With a lot of situations it's fine.
 
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