In dire need of 20mm viewfinder... and cheap

Andrey · Jun 7, 2010

This is ridiculous.

I got a 21mm color scopar and now I'm looking for a viewfinder.

The cheapest thing I can can find would cost me 100 bucks!

I'm not paying 100 bucks for two pieces of plastic glued together.

What are my options?

My first thought was to take a 35mm slide frame, make a box 21mm deep with a small 2-4 mm hole for my eye. But that's not too convenient.

The second thought is to buy a broken vivitar wide and slim. That thing has a 22mm lens AND a viewfinder. And they cost 10 bucks. I could take out the viewfinder out of that camera and use it on my rangefinder... somehow.

Does anybody have a spare one?
Anybody has a broken vivitar 22mm camera?
Other ideas?

Thanks

Steve Smith · Jun 7, 2010

If you look at my link below for my wide angle panoramic camera you will see the wiewfinder I made. It is for a 65m lens on 6x12cm format but masked with the correct frame it would be around 20mm for a 35mm format.

I made mine with a lot of trial and error using old lens elements. You need three elements in the order positive - negative - positive.

I think the Vivitar option may be easier though. Something else worth trying is a negative (concave) lens in front of an ordinary viewfinder. Get the viewfinder from a single use camera and experiment with that.

Steve.

Krzys · Jun 7, 2010

If $100 for a viewfinder is ridiculous then why are you shooting with a rangefinder man! If I had to get a viewfinder separate it would be around $200 aud in the end..minimum.. Jeeze.

Andrey · Jun 7, 2010

Krzys said:
If $100 for a viewfinder is ridiculous then why are you shooting with a rangefinder man! If I had to get a viewfinder separate it would be around $200 aud in the end..minimum.. Jeeze.

I shoot it because I like cheap, small wide angle lenses. Not because I like paying an arm and a leg for accessories.

Steve Smith said:
If you look at my link below for my wide angle panoramic camera you will see the wiewfinder I made. It is for a 65m lens on 6x12cm format but masked with the correct frame it would be around 20mm for a 35mm format.

Pretty cool. I might try something like this, but if it takes too much time, I might be better off buying the viewfinder.

darkosaric · Jun 7, 2010

Andrey said:
I shoot it because I like cheap, small wide angle lenses. Not because I like paying an arm and a leg for accessories.

Admit: you put your scopar on zorki 4

benjiboy · Jun 7, 2010

Logically you have two options, either pay the $100, or do without it.

Softie · Jun 7, 2010

You can buy a front-door peephole and see how it matches up with the 20mm, masking if necessary. Back when the Hobo was in production they supplied a front-door peephole viewfinder to approximate a 120mm field of view on the 8x10 format.

clayne · Jun 7, 2010

This is why I prefer to use an SLR for ultrawides - visualization through the viewfinder feels more accurate

Andrey · Jun 7, 2010

darkosaric said:
Admit: you put your scopar on zorki 4

How did you know? LOL

It's actually a funny story. I FOUND a fully functional zorki 4 in the back of my apartment building. There was a box of "moving out garbage" and I peeked in. Two dead digital cameras and a zorki 4 with a mint jupiter 12. Score!

But I do have a FED II I bought off ebay fair and square for 40 bucks.

Andrey · Jun 7, 2010

clayne said:
This is why I prefer to use an SLR for ultrawides - visualization through the viewfinder feels more accurate

The problem is that I don't like ultra wide distortion.

I had a 17-40 from canon. The thing is huge, the quality is OK, but it makes the lines curvy. For some reason, when I have a fridge in the corner of my photo, I like it to be straight. It's very important to me.

There's a distagon 21mm from zeiss, but I'd have to live 10 years on noodles to save up for it.

clayne · Jun 7, 2010

Andrey said:
The problem is that I don't like ultra wide distortion.

You have to embrace the look and feel of a wide-angle in order to effectively use one. Besides you can't really have wide and zero distortion unless you're shooting an inherently wide format.

I had a 17-40 from canon. The thing is huge, the quality is OK, but it makes the lines curvy. For some reason, when I have a fridge in the corner of my photo, I like it to be straight. It's very important to me.

This is barrel distortion that Canon wide-angles tend to head towards. Nikkors don't typically do this

Not all WA distortion is equal.

darkosaric · Jun 7, 2010

Andrey said:
How did you know? LOL

Well - I was thinking about same thing a while ago: to buy summicron or summitar to put it on zorki4 but on the end I emptied my pocked and got leica

pryan9 · Jun 7, 2010

did you try the ikodot? I believe someone on here told me about this recently.

http://www.ikodot.com/frameashot.html

John Koehrer · Jun 7, 2010

$100 for a finder or wire frame?. I know, the frame is multi-focal length but geez.

lxdude · Jun 7, 2010

And the Ikodot is--$100!

After the Ikodot, $100 for a proper finder doesn't look so shabby.

My opinion is, just look at the cost of a finder as part of the cost of the lens you wanted.

Andrey · Jun 8, 2010

lxdude said:
My opinion is, just look at the cost of a finder as part of the cost of the lens you wanted.

When I look at it like that, I got a pretty crappy deal.

lxdude · Jun 8, 2010

Andrey said:
When I look at it like that, I got a pretty crappy deal.

It's all how you view it!

6x9 · Jun 8, 2010

lol. I posted a response but in the wrong thread ((there was a url link here which no longer exists))

The Zeiss 21mm finder is worth every penny. I got mine for about $250 USD. It is flawless and IS the best 21mm finder.

michaelbsc · Jun 8, 2010

If you have any place local that still processes film in the disposables, then ask them for a bag of the bodies. Go through the various kinds in the bag looking for the one with the "closest" finder, then mask it to work. Tear the finder out of the cardboard and figure out how to mount it in a tube for your own use.

Ugly? You bet. Ugly as home made sin. Functional? You bet. Mine works like a champ, but I have a 28mm lens. (On a FED2.)

Cheap? Well, that all depends on what your time is worth.

Andrey · Jun 8, 2010

michaelbsc said:
If you have any place local that still processes film in the disposables, then ask them for a bag of the bodies. Go through the various kinds in the bag looking for the one with the "closest" finder, then mask it to work. Tear the finder out of the cardboard and figure out how to mount it in a tube for your own use.

Ugly? You bet. Ugly as home made sin. Functional? You bet. Mine works like a champ, but I have a 28mm lens. (On a FED2.)

Cheap? Well, that all depends on what your time is worth.

Do you know of any point and shoots with a 20mm lens?

The only one I know is vivitar wide and slim.

Steve Smith · Jun 9, 2010

Most of the single use cameras are fairly wide angle - perhaps around 35mm so you will need a supplementary negative lens on the front to widen the view a bit.

When I was experimenting with the 65mm lens for my 6x12 camera I initially mounted it on an old 6x6 folder body (without the bellows or door). In order to get the viewfinder to show what the 65mm lens was presenting to the film I just taped a lens element from another viewfinder to the front.

If you know as much about optical theory as I do (almost none) then there is a lot of trial and error involved. It also helps if you have lots of spare parts from previous camera and lens repair attempts!

Steve.

firecracker · Jun 9, 2010

There was a article on this kind of topic (Cosina's rangefinder "accessory business") by Dante Stella, and I totally agree with what he says.

kossi008 · Jun 10, 2010

Well, I partly disagree. While I don't like to put many accessories on my Ikon, I do put up with the 21mm external finder for my Skopar to get... what?

A non-retrofocus wide angle set-up. And THAT is the one thing that rangefinders do better than SLRs... it might be more clumsy to operate, but in the end it's the image quality that counts.

And boy did the tiny little Skopar blow both my EF 17-40 L and my EF 20/2.8 into the weeds. To say nothing about the stealth factor...

firecracker · Jun 10, 2010

kossi008 said:
And boy did the tiny little Skopar blow both my EF 17-40 L and my EF 20/2.8 into the weeds. To say nothing about the stealth factor...

I shoot Canon New F-1 with 20mm F2.8 FDn(New FD) lens, and that combination is not compact, but it's still very practical in many ways. I have Leica M3, but I only use one lens that is an old 50mm Summicron because I don't think it's practical to switch a lens which requires an external viewfinder.

So, I guess we do what we do, and the choices we make are different...

kossi008 · Jun 10, 2010

firecracker said:
So, I guess we do what we do, and the choices we make are different...

Couldn't have said it better.

The FD 20/2.8 might even be better than the EF, the latter looks to be a new design, and in the early EOS days, often those redesigns were not made to improve the optics but to accomodate the AF...

In dire need of 20mm viewfinder... and cheap

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