Non-RF: Brighter screen for YashicaMat

[felipe]

thanks guys, yup, pics all done with the mat124G.
It was my first MF camera as well (ugh, apart from that agfa clack), and we were really close 😀
but the swedish looker got the better of me. Sold the Mat to a teen who had just started taking photographs, he saved up his pocket money for it. Yes I gave him a good price. The 124 is the ultimate starter for 6x6..

Anyways, Roman:
You are right, waiting it out might save you some money. Prices for the 124G are ridiculously high on ebay, (just checked). Some months ago you could get a near mint one for 80-120 Euros..

The fresnel lens sound like a good idea,wish I had known about this earlier, might have saved roughly 2k 😀

Let us know of your results!

phil

 

[Pherdinand]

The idea with the fresnel lens is, that it's directing the light towards the viewer. In the case of a plain ground glass, when you look onto the middle region the light passing through the edges goes mostly in other directions than your eye. A fresnel lens with its concentric grooves redirects the "useless" light rays towards the centre of the lens. That's why it is also important to have the middle of the fresnel lens centered in the finder.

On the fresnel lenses factory installed in mat 124 G's (and the yashica D i had before), in the central region there are no grooves (bright enough anyway), to not decrease the contrast and accuracy for focussing. It would be ideal to find such a fresnel lens but i doubt you will manage.

So, indeed, the amount of light passing through the finder will not increase - but it will be more efficiently used.

Sorry for the detour.

 

[Roman]

Did some googling - the K60 screen is too small...
There's also a German repair shop, Paepke, that sells Rollei screens for 42 Euros.

Roman

 

[Bertram2]

Phil,
Hmmm, dimly lit hotel room in Paris........ , no matter WHAT you shoot there usually but that is RF land !!
There the TLR is the worst choice at all , leaving aside the old Praktika stopped down 🙂) And a 40 yo Rolleiflex won't do much better without a prism finder.
Which was made for the dim hotel rooms in Paris as you surely know 😀

With TLR od SLR you better do something like that:

Paris Hotel

Leaves more room for imagination anyway ! :angel:

Best,
Bertram