Cleaning Minolta X-700 viewfinder

vodanh · Jun 18, 2019

Hi,

My Minolta X-700 was dropped from 1,5 meters , everything worked fine (tested by several rolls) but the viewfinder had some problem, it has got some dirt inside as follows:

photo_2019-06-18_21-07-32 by Khanh Nguyen, on Flickr

I don't know any way to clean it, rather than disassembling the camera's top to reach the viewfinder.

Would you know any other way? Or any suggestion for me to clean it?

Please help me.

Thanks

neilt3 · Jun 18, 2019

The dirt is most likely on the ground glass focus screen ( well plastic I think ) , either from within the mirror box or between the focus screen and pentaprism , which if I remember correctly is user changeable .
Check in the user manual .
It's a simple matter to take it out ,if needed , give everything a good blast out with a blower bulb and reassemble .

vodanh · Jun 18, 2019

neilt3 said:
The dirt is most likely on the ground glass focus screen ( well plastic I think ) , either from within the mirror box or between the focus screen and pentaprism , which if I remember correctly is user changeable .
Check in the user manual .
It's a simple matter to take it out ,if needed , give everything a good blast out with a blower bulb and reassemble .

Thank you, it's now clean perfectly.

neilt3 · Jun 18, 2019

Glad you sorted it .
The cameras probably been stored for some of its life during the last 35 or so years .
Likely there's plenty of dirt in the mirror box that needs blowing out , otherwise it'll probably happen again or get in amongst the shutter or on the film .
Same goes for most old cameras .

vodanh · Jun 18, 2019

neilt3 said:
Glad you sorted it .
The cameras probably been stored for some of its life during the last 35 or so years .
Likely there's plenty of dirt in the mirror box that needs blowing out , otherwise it'll probably happen again or get in amongst the shutter or on the film .
Same goes for most old cameras .

It seems that to clean it perfectly, opening from the top is the only choice

neilt3 · Jun 19, 2019

Have you had the focussing screen out to clean between it and the pentaprism ?

vodanh · Jun 19, 2019

neilt3 said:
Have you had the focussing screen out to clean between it and the pentaprism ?

Yes I have. But the space is too small to take care of all the angles of the pentaprism. You can see in the image I upload here.

neilt3 · Jun 19, 2019

To be honest , it looks clear enough to me .
I wouldn't worry about it , it a massive improvement .
Being in the path of the viewfinder it won't appear in the photo anyway , so not an issue .

Cleaning Minolta X-700 viewfinder

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