what do people use to frame when shooting 35mm lens with FED2 / KIEV?

[mnmleung]

Sorry for a noddy question. What do people use to frame when using a 35mm lens on FSU Leica / Kontax clones? Thanks from Ming

 

[rxmd]

An external viewfinder. (In my case a Helios viewfinder with 35 and 85mm framelines.)

 

[BillP]

An external viewfinder. (In my case a Helios viewfinder with 35 and 85mm framelines.)

Same here. Light, simple and effective. They come up regularly on eBay. I did have a VIDOM, which is a beautiful piece of engineering, but it was just too bulky. I cannot imagine using a turret finder!


Regards,

Bill

 

[Henryah]

Use a separate finder mounted in the acccesory shoe, either a fixed one for 35 mm or a universal finder for lenses from 28 mm to 135 mm.
All the best Henry-

 

[wlewisiii]

Another option is to make your own 35mm finder. The little single use Kodak cameras all have a VF with an approx. 35mm field of view. Take one out & mount it on a shoe... 🙂 There are a couple of web sites describing the process in detail if you google for it. Mine works just fine though I do have to use my turret finder for my 85mm lens.

William

 

[wolves3012]

I use the turret-finder with the Kiev and all my other FSUs. Does the job.

 

[Spider67]

An accura VF: It has two frames the outer one is 35 the inner one seems to be 70-75mm.
The FSU single VF´s (for 35 or 85mm) are just to crammed. Go for those with illuminated focal lines like the Helios or the Accura. The universal FSU-VF is also very comfortable! (a bit bulky).
There are to types of those one for Kiev (drum to the right side) and one for Zorki/Fed (drum to the left). The VF you use is right in the middle so that´s not tso important: Be careful as you can use the Zorki/Fed on a Kiev and have to take it off to rewind the film, but if you use the Kiev on a Zorki/fed it can happen that the drum get´s in the way of the shutter speed dial.

 

[timmyd18]

i've learned to guess the difference between the 35mm and 50mm viewfinders, so i kind of wing it. i've had a harder time with 135mm.

 

[payasam]

If you propose to use (apart from a normal) only a 35 mm lens with the camera, a single focal length finder is the obvious choice. I must say, though, that the two multi-focal finders I have used -- one a Leitz VIOOH and the other a turret type made in Liechtenstein -- were not overly large: and they offered parallax compensation besides.

 

[newspaperguy]

The Rolls-Royce of finders are the Leitz 'Brilliant' and the CV finders. Of course, they're R-R priced too. I use Helios and similar on my Zorki 1, and a great little Kodak Retina 35/85 finder on my Kievs.

You can also look for aftermarket wide/tele adapter lens kits for various cameras (I'm looking at one from Petri and another from Kaligar) that came comlete with finders similar to the Helios, and are dirt cheap now.
(I paid $3 for the last set.)

One caution - other than the Leitz/CV models - none work well with eyeglasses.

And an admission: For the money I've spent trying to find a cheap finder that works that I could have bought a CV finder from Stephen. :bang:

 

[malkmata]

I've used the Russian single focal length finders, a 35 and a 85. For framing, the 35 finder were accurate but I'm having problems framing with the 85 finder on my Fed-2. My images shot at close range are coming out too low and the infinity shots are a little high. How do you guys compensate for this? Jay Javier (Fed-Zorki Survival Guide) says these small finders works better with cameras that have higher top plate and shoe like the Kievs or Zorki-4.

 

[ampguy]

I have a J12 35/2.8 that I plan to use on a Zorki 4K, initially without a finder. I'm going to guess at the lines or use another camera for reference, but am hoping to be able to get to get by, but am keeping my eyes open for a used low priced 35mm finder.

 

[iamzip]

Another option is to make your own 35mm finder. The little single use Kodak cameras all have a VF with an approx. 35mm field of view. Take one out & mount it on a shoe... 🙂 There are a couple of web sites describing the process in detail if you google for it. Mine works just fine though I do have to use my turret finder for my 85mm lens.

William

could you point us in the direction of those sites? I can't seem to find them.

 

[malkmata]

could you point us in the direction of those sites? I can't seem to find them.

Try this:
http://jay.fedka.com/index_files/Page358.htm

 

[ray*j*gun]

Turret finder cheap and excellent product. A bit large but jeez we are men right?

Ray

 

[wlewisiii]

Jay's page is one I was thinking of. But all I did was take the shoe from a broken flash & glue the finder from a kodak single use camera onto it. It works just find.

William

 

[brachal]

The KMZ Turret-finder is what I use. Love it.