Half Frame Question

Hi there,

I'm not familiar with half frames and would like to know if I'd need a diopter with a Canon Demi or a Olympus Pen?

Regards.

I had a canon demi over 40 years ago. So long ago that I really don't remember the detail of the focussing. But it was only a 28mm lens and for that short a focal length then the figures for in focus using a CoC of 0.03 are:

for focussed at 2.0m
f2.8 1.65m to 2.54m
f4.0 1.54m to 2.87m
f5.6 1.4m to 3.46m
f8.0 1.25m to 5.05m
f11 1.1m to 11.7m

for focussed at 10.0m
f2.8 4.84m to infinity
f4.0 3.96m to infinity
f5.6 3.19m to infinity
f8.0 2.47m to infinity
f11 1.92m to infinity

given the depth of field figures for a 28mm lens, you can more less just use zone focussing and be there unless you are photographing stuff close up.
So whether you would need a dioptre is debateable. I don't even know if such a thing existed which could be fitted to eyepiece.

The camera I had produced excellent colour quality and very sharp images on slides.

Although I need reading glasses to see the f-stop, shutter and focus numbers, I can see clearly through the finder of my Olympus Pen-S without my spectacles. Likewise, the Canon Demi has a nice bright viewfinder that causes me no problems. The Olympus Pen F/FT reflex viewfinder is also fine without correction. I've never heard of any diopters for these cameras.

On the other hand, the viewfinder image in my Mercury II half-frame is quite fuzzy unless I wear my readers.

I use a -3 on my SLR + my glasses, so naturally I was wondering. I'd like to buy one of those small cameras for fun, could be nice to bring in family events or when I'm with friends. I don't know yet which model I'll pick, there's the Demi, Pen EE, Minolta Repo, Konica Eye, Mamiya Mimi, Fuji Half, Chaika III etc etc

Some of the ISO 400 speed films with traditional grain are too grainy to enlarge much from half-frame [single frame].

I should use ISO100 or 200 ?

If you are going to use ISO 400 film use a tabular grain film like Kodak TMax or Ilford Delta.

are you intending slides or negatives?

use whichever speed film you feel comfortable with. If negative then how big do you intend to enlarge?
With colour neg film I think 400 speed will be fine. With B&W neg film 400 is OK if you use tgrain such as delta 400 or T-Max and you may prefer a bit more grain anyway. We don't know.
If focussing is an issue for you and you just want as much DoF as possible then 400 Speed film will allow you smaller apertures so you can just use zone focussing. providing you don't want to print 20x16s I think you'll be fine. If you want absolute minimal grain then 100 or slower film speed.

I use a Chaika and I just shoot with my glasses on, no diopter (I'm nearsighted). It's one of the few half frames that are fully manual.

Helios 1984 said:

I use a -3 on my SLR + my glasses, so naturally I was wondering. I'd like to buy one of those small cameras for fun, could be nice to bring in family events or when I'm with friends. I don't know yet which model I'll pick, there's the Demi, Pen EE, Minolta Repo, Konica Eye, Mamiya Mimi, Fuji Half, Chaika III etc etc

Click to expand...

I've shot with the Pen EES, Pen EES2, and Pen D. The sharpness of the EES/EES2 lenses were merely okay, despite having four elements (Tessar clones). But the Pen D was noticeably sharper.
At one event, I shot with both an EES and Petri 2.8, and while the EES sharpness didn't look bad, the Petri was clearly sharper.

On a related topic, I find that half-frame causes me to shoot in what I call "digital mode", in which I shoot freely as if I had unlimited shots on the roll. Quantity goes up, and quality goes down.

Mark Overton

albada said:

On a related topic, I find that half-frame causes me to shoot in what I call "digital mode", in which I shoot freely as if I had unlimited shots on the roll. Quantity goes up, and quality goes down.

Mark Overton

Click to expand...

So you have fun when using it? That is a good thing. : )

Sirius Glass said:

Some of the ISO 400 speed films with traditional grain are too grainy to enlarge much from half-frame [single frame].

Click to expand...

I have a beautiful shot taken over 30 years ago on Kodak 400 print film. It looks great at 5x7 and would no doubt be fine at 8x10. Olympus extensively addressed the "enlargement problem" when they marketed the Pen's in the '60's. The 4x3 aspect ration requires much less cropping than the 3x2 of a full frame 35mm.

I'm also looking for a viewfinder correction accessory that would fit on a Praktica L 2. Any recommendation ? (The joys of glasses huh)

Thank you for your time.