Mamiya TLR Chimney and Hood Viewfinders

[DavidClapp]

My C3 viewfinder has a 1/2cm gap between the flip out magnifying lens and the top of the metal surrounds. Light leaks in throughout the gap and causes a lack of contrast / hits my eyes side on when shooting in evening light, so I have to raise my hand to my face to block it out.

With the myriad of accessories and different TLR accessories, the options seem to be a chimney finder but I am yet to find one on the second hand market. I guess they are fairly infrequent.

The other option is to get a better hood - am I right in assuming the C330 style ones block out stray light entirely - will one of these fit on the C3?

I was in Manchester this week so I popped into The Real Camera Store and got a 55mm and a 80mm. I can thoroughly recommend them.

 

[grahamp]

Yes, the late versions of the WLF have higher sides and a full-size panel for the magnifier. They also open and close with one hand. Very like the 645 Mamiya WLF finders in design. There are two versions, one with the sportsfinder aperture, and one without.

The chimney finder is really good for light control, but you cannot use it at a distance for framing checks like the WLF. It is bulky, but light - mostly empty volume.

Graham

 

[Oren Grad]

I think the late-style WLF's can be as hard to find as the chimney finders if not more so, at least if you're trying to get one without buying an entire camera.

I have the non-metered 3.5x/6x chimney installed as the standard finder on my C220. For me, that and the left-hand grip are what make the camera usable.

 

[tessar]

Graham Patterson has a complete rundown of finders on his exhaustive Mamiya TLR website (section 6.4):
http://www.gapatterson.com/grahamp
Waist-level finders for the C series are not hard to find. The auction site currently lists several:
http://www.ebay.ca/sch/i.html?_from...miya+tlr.TRS0&_nkw=mamiya+tlr+finder&_sacat=0
From my experience the Mamiya WLFs are interchangeable among the C series. I'm using a finder from an older C330 on a C330s (last model), so this finder AFAIK would also fit the C3.