What is vertical alignment and how does it get off?

[matt miller]

I purchased an R3M and 50/2 Heliar set from Mr Gandy a few weeks ago. I am really falling in love with the combo. I am fairly new to RF's, having only run a few rolls through a Canonet that I have.

I noticed today that the rangefinder is out of alignment. I didn't notice it last time I used it. My first roll of film appears to have no focus problems. When I focus on something, one image is slightly higher in the VF than the other. Is this referred to as the vertical alignment?

As I understand it, when the vertical alignment is off, but horizontal is on, I will still get proper focus. Is this true?

Is this something that I can adjust back myself?
Why/How does it get off?
Will it keep doing it?

I've written to Mr Gandy about this, but understand that he will be away at Photokina for a few weeks.

Thank you for any input you can provide.
Matt

 

[biomed]

Matt,
I had the same problem with the R3A. Sometimes the vertical alignment was off. I noticed that in my case, the alignment changed depending what position my eye is in reference to the center point of the viewfinder. Moving the camera up or down slightly brought the vertical alignment to where it should be. Is this a quirk with the 1:1 finders? I spoke with Stephen Gandy about this and he suggested to make sure that my eye was centered in the viewfinder eyepiece. If this didn't fix the problem, Stephen said he would fix it. Any way, my problem turned out to be eye position.

Mike

 

[kbg32]

Rangefinders can get out of alignment by banging the camera hard, dropping it, etc..

 

[matt miller]

Matt,
I had the same problem with the R3A. Sometimes the vertical alignment was off. I noticed that in my case, the alignment changed depending what position my eye is in reference to the center point of the viewfinder. Moving the camera up or down slightly brought the vertical alignment to where it should be. Is this a quirk with the 1:1 finders? I spoke with Stephen Gandy about this and he suggested to make sure that my eye was centered in the viewfinder eyepiece. If this didn't fix the problem, Stephen said he would fix it. Any way, my problem turned out to be eye position.

Mike

Thanks Mike, I'll check that out to see if that's my problem.

 

[dcsang]

Exactly what Keith said.. jostling them around (the camera that is) can sometimes cause misalignment of the rangefinder.

This is one of the reasons (be it true or not) that some folks will say that Leica's build quality is better than Cosinas; but I'm sure Leica rangefinders can go out of alignment too.

Welcome to RFF Matt. 🙂

Dave

 

[rloeb]

I just got a new R3A from CameraQuest and have exactly the same problem. I've tried moving my eye around, but that hasn't worked. I'll work with it a little longer before I get concerned about it, but it is a little disconcerting as it interferes with seeing the image.

Rog

 

[clintock]

It's not too hard to align yourself, there is a thread about it in the epson area,
here:
http://www.rangefinderforum.com/forums/showthread.php?t=18901&highlight=r3a+alignment
I did it to my r3a and man o man is there a huge difference. If you have a swiss army knife plastic toothpick I've found that to be the best thing to get the shoe cover off..
Dont try to fake something for the phillips screws, you need a real proper phillips head that small to get the screws out of the shoe.. after that it's easy.. well kinda..

 

[Goodyear]

It is the case that the horizontal alignment is the one you focus with, but my experience (I had a Bessa R that was a little off in the vertical - a local tech aligned it for me) is that it is much snappier to focus with an RF correctly aligned in the vertical: makes it very clear when you're in focus.

 

[matt miller]

Thanks Mike, I'll check that out to see if that's my problem.

This must have been my problem, because it appears to be just fine now. When I noticed that the alignment was off the other day, I was sitting in the van, looking through the windshield. That probably had something to do with it too.

Anyway, everything's fine. Thanks for all the help.

Matt