Fed 3 parallax error

When and how much does parallax error effect the Fed 3 viewfinder?

I don't think that camera has any parallax correction in the viewfinder.

I just checked. Zero.

ic-racer said:

I don't think that camera has any parallax correction in the viewfinder.

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I don't know about that since the finder is unusually close to the lens, but also higher as well.

Anyway, the question is does it err, and when?

Parallax is an issue when the subject is too close to the camera. I'm not sure how the viewfinder is set - but my guess is it's accurate at about 6 feet (normal distance for taking a picture of someone). I don't know of any lenses that focus closer than around 3 feet. So, not a whole lot of error.

George Mann said:

I don't know about that since the finder is unusually close to the lens, but also higher as well.

Anyway, the question is does it err, and when?

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There will be error all the time, unless using something like a paramender.

Don Heisz said:

Parallax is an issue when the subject is too close to the camera. I'm not sure how the viewfinder is set - but my guess is it's accurate at about 6 feet (normal distance for taking a picture of someone). I don't know of any lenses that focus closer than around 3 feet. So, not a whole lot of error.

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That sounds reasonable. Most of my shots are at infinity anyway.

You can get a good idea of parallax error if you put some ground glass over the film plane and compare the viewfinder image with what's on the ground glass. Generally speaking there shouldn't be much error with objects further than 1.5 meters or so away.

I have a FED 5 where the viewfinder/rangefinder assembly was slightly crooked, resulting in the VF pointing away from the actual field of view. This might be uncommon but it's maybe not a bad idea to check a new (Russian) camera to rule out that this is a problem.