Nikkormat viewfinder coverage

George Mann · Oct 2, 2019

Is it true that Nikkormats have a viewfinder coverage of 80 to 85 percent? I have never really noticed it being this tight.

abruzzi · Oct 2, 2019

The FTN/FT2 is closer to 92% as I understand.

Mackinaw · Oct 2, 2019

abruzzi said:
The FTN/FT2 is closer to 92% as I understand.

Yep, 92%.

wiltw · Oct 2, 2019

100% coverage sounds ideal, until you realize that if you shoot transparencies, the slide opening covers some of that FOV, and what you get in a viewable slide is LESS THAN 100%

AgX · Oct 3, 2019

This is one reason for designing a reduced coverage. Tolerances in manufacture/assembly may be another one.

guangong · Oct 3, 2019

Camera manufacturers often decided how they believed their cameras would be used. Nikon Fs went for full frame to provide an accurate full frame image on bw film. Others, such as Leicaflex, assumed significant use for slides as well as wiggle room for bw negatives. In fact, Leitz made their 92% viewfinder a marketing point for Leicaflexes.
Both decisions have their strong points.

benjiboy · Nov 29, 2019

92% is perfect it allows enough space so you don't have to file out your enlarger negative carried to show the whole neg.and leaves enough space on transparency films to allow for the slide mount.

macfred · Nov 29, 2019

EL2 92% coverage too

Les Sarile · Nov 29, 2019

Of all the manual focus cameras I have and know about, only the Nikon F, F2 & F3 have 100% coverage.

loman · Nov 29, 2019

All Nikkormats have 92% coverage just like all the fm/fe iterations that followed it.

Huss · Dec 4, 2019

My Zenit TTL has I think 65% coverage. Zenit advertised that as a plus as it gave room for error in composition. Ignoring of course the fact that using SLRs is meant to eliminate that.
I think my Zenit 212k is similar.

ic-racer · Dec 4, 2019

Somewhere around 98 to 95% works best if one likes smooth borders around the image. Depending on the magnification, this allows 2 to 5 millimeters of overlap for the blades.

Chan Tran · Dec 4, 2019

Most 35mm SLR viewfinders cover more than 90%. 97% is typical.

AgX · Dec 7, 2019

Huss said:
My Zenit TTL has I think 65% coverage.

That figure is absurd. KMZ states for the Zenit EM and 122 for the vertical 84% and for the horizontal 78%

Huss · Dec 7, 2019

AgX said:
That figure is absurd. KMZ states for the Zenit EM and 122 for the vertical 84% and for the horizontal 78%

http://www.zenitcamera.com/mans/zenit-ttl/zenit-ttl-eng.html

"Frame size -- 24×36 mm
Viewfinder linear field of view -- 20×28 mm"

= 65% of film area.

AgX · Dec 8, 2019

Viewfinder coverage is typically not stated by square but by linear coverage.

Zenit E series:
vertical 84% and for the horizontal 78%

AE-1
vertical 94% and for the horizontal 96%

R8
vertical 96% and for the horizontal 97%

The german standard for slide mount gates was 23x35mm
That makes vertical 95% and horizontal 97%.

Huss · Dec 8, 2019

AgX said:
Viewfinder coverage is typically not stated by square but by linear coverage.

Zenit E series:
vertical 84% and for the horizontal 78%

So your Zenit E is also 65% of the film coverage. Just like my TTL.

AgX · Dec 8, 2019

I did not deny that, but the point is, what so far was not discussed, that there are 2 ways of defining viewfinder coverage: linear and square !"

So far I only considered the linear way. And I am not sure if editors at manufacturers, when stating area coverage still do not actually mean instead a linear coverage.
For example: stated 94% area coverage, but meant is 94% vertical and 94% horizontal.

In any case I read it this way so far.
And this is the only way useful of putting such information.

Anyway, so far I checked:
KMZ: linear
Canon: linear
Minolta: square
Olympus: square
Pentacon: linear
Pentax: linear
Mamiya: square
Ricoh: linear
Leica: linear
Fuji: linear
Cosina: linear

Huss · Dec 8, 2019

AgX said:
I did not deny that, but the point is, what so far was not discussed, that there are 2 ways of defining viewfinder coverage: linear and square !"

So far I only considered the linear way. And I am not sure if editors at manufacturers, when stating area coverage still do not actually mean instead a linear coverage.
For example: stated 94% area coverage, but meant is 94% vertical and 94% horizontal.

In any case I read it this way so far.
And this is the only way useful of putting such information.

Anyway, so far I checked:
KMZ: linear
Canon: linear
Minolta: square
Olympus: square
Pentacon: linear
Pentax: linear
Mamiya: square
Ricoh: linear
Leica: linear
Fuji: linear
Cosina: linear

No, what you said was my statement that Zenits have 65% film coverage is absurd.
When it is a completely correct statement. The view in the viewfinder only covers 65% of the actual film, which is terrible.

AgX · Dec 8, 2019

I did not deny it in my second post on this (having realized on what your figure was based), on which you replied...
But you still did not get my point on the difference between linear and square coverage: 65% linear would yield much less area coverage than 65% square !

But I agree 65% true area coverage already is extreme. (Canon: 90%.)

But again, the user cannot begin anything with true area coverage, but instead needs figures for linear coverage.
(And here the deviation for the Zenit is not that extreme figure-wise, if that matters.)

Furthermore, ask yourself how precisely a average user could define the actual exposed area against his finder image given the figures from post #16.
And this still is based on the assumption that film gate and finder gate are perfectly concentric on the optical axis, the lateral deviations thus evenly parted to both sides.
But this does not necessarily apply. The deviations may be intended to gvive leeway for manufacture.

Seen all this the whole thread is.... very academic.

Nikkormat viewfinder coverage

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