Question about Viewfinders

[safari]

Hallo,

first, let's say hi to the forum, as I'm new here 🙂

I have a question about viewfinders in the Bessa cameras. I'm interested in the 1:1 viewfinder of the Bessa R3(M/A). I have a Bessa R. Everybody says how great the R3 finder is, and then some people say they can't see the framelines even without glasses. So I have a couple of questions:

- How does the 1:1 viewfinder work, and what is the visual impression of an 1:1 viewfinder vs. an 1:0.7 viewfinder? Is the size of the viewfinder image, as I look through the finder, the same and only the content is enlarged, or is the whole viewfinder image bigger than on the R2?
- If the whole viewfinder image is bigger, how much bigger is it? Visually, if you tried to fit the whole R2 viewfinder in the R3, roughly in what frameline of the R3 would it fit?
- Is the rangefinder spot larger, too? That could be very useful.
- Is the R3 critical about placement of the eye? I'm a left-eye photographer and sometimes the camera gets in the way of the nose 🙂

I know that this is hard to dscribe, but I can't simply go and try because I know nobody with a bessa R3.

Thanks!

 

[ClaremontPhoto]

Try and right eye with the R3 and keep both eyes open. I used to be left eye too.

The framelines do appear and disappear a bit but they sre so close the the edge of the viewfinder that it just seems to work ok. I use the 40mm lens but choose the 50mm framelines to get horizons straight - not for framing.

Whereas framelines are not an issue I do find the exposure readout difficult to see so I tend to either leave the camera on A, or sunny 16 it, or just plain guess in a dark late night bar.