Out of focus photos

[peppermill]

Hi there,

I have joined recently and have received my RD1s for about a week.

I have a problem where although i take my time to focus carefully with the rangefinder, the area i focus perfectly on is totally out of focus. I have tried setting the lens to the correct distance based on my other camera and the image is sharp. What could possibly be the problem?

Seems for the image to be sharp, the image in the viewfinder has a massive offset.

I'm using a voigtlander L to M adapter with a Voigtlander Color Skopar 21mm f:4.0 lens



Any help or recommendation would be very appreciated.

Tom

 

[kshapero]

yechs, sounds like the rangefinder is out of alignment. Contact the seller. Is it new or used? Check out: http://www.richcutler.co.uk/r-d1/r-d1_01.htm.
Good luck.

 

[ClaremontPhoto]

Try focusing using the rangefinder patch on a known distance.

Like you know the length of your den or whatever.

Then look at the lens and if you know your den is 12 feet, but the scale says 6 feet you know you've got a problem.

 

[peppermill]

Yep i did this over lunch.

I could contact the seller, but it would probably take a while to get sorted. It came new off ebay. I had a look at the rangefinder realignment page on the website posted above and it seems a little tricky to do 🙁 .

Is this something i can get a professional to do?

 

[ClaremontPhoto]

A repair shop can do this, but with a new camera you should not need to bother yourself. I would contact the seller and arrange a replacement which has been checked before it leaves them.

 

[kshapero]

Going back to seller is preferred but Steve can advise you honestly at Steve's Camera Repair. http://stevecamera.com

 

[peppermill]

hi

i went to my local camera shop in london and let them take a look. they tried a different lens on the camera and it worked fine.
seems the 21mm i have has a problem. its strange because is i measure distances on the lens its fine but focusing with the RF is broken.
well im using a 40mm 1.4 nokton now and im very happy. the 21mm f4 made lovely images when it behaved.
do these symptoms make sense in any way or should i just contact the ebay seller i bought the lens from last week?

tom

 

[LCT]

May come from the adapter as well. I would not touch the rangefinder in any way as long as i'm not sure the problem comes from the camera.

 

[john_s]

Although long focal lengths are harder to focus accurately, short focal lengths have their own area of challenge to the rangefinder integrity. The closeness of the rear element to the film/sensor means that the cone of rays that should reach a point at the film/sensor are coming from a wide angle (i.e. it is a very short cone). Small errors in the rangefinder/lens combination are much more apparent than in the case of a long lens where the cone is long and the rays converge on the film at a much less critical angle. Hope I've expressed this clearly enough.

 

[Jim Watts]

hi

i went to my local camera shop in london and let them take a look. they tried a different lens on the camera and it worked fine.
seems the 21mm i have has a problem. its strange because is i measure distances on the lens its fine but focusing with the RF is broken.
well im using a 40mm 1.4 nokton now and im very happy. the 21mm f4 made lovely images when it behaved.
do these symptoms make sense in any way or should i just contact the ebay seller i bought the lens from last week?

tom

It may be a problem with the adapter as LCT says, but the voigtlander ones are usually of good quality unless damaged. It could be that the cam on the lens is damaged and/or not engaging the cam follower in the camera properly. Try (lightly) pushing the cam follower wheel in and out a few times before mounting the lens.

It may just be a front/back focus issue with that sample of the lens, but the error seems large for this if scale focus works.

 

[Tuolumne]

I thought the 21mm color skopar is not rangefinder coupled!

/T

P.S. My mistake. I just checked the CameraQuest site. Apparently, it is rf coupled.