Panoramic 617 viewfinder accuracy

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Paul Ozzello

Member
Joined
Nov 3, 2004
Messages
618
Location
Montreal
Format
Medium Format
I have several lenses for my Horseman 617 with corresponding viewfinders (same viewfinders used on the Fuji GX617) and they are all very accurate except for the 72mm (I have two 72mm viewfinders - one new - and both are just as bad)

The projected frame from the silvered mirror crops too much into the actual frame and should be both wider and taller.

My thought was to replace the acetate image that gets projected into the viewfinder with a new one that I would print myself. It looks like a small sheet of acetate that is mostly black - and reverse printed to let the light through to project the outline of the cropping frame.

Can anyone recommend the best way to print this? I suppose any clear acetate material would work, but the ink needs to be really dense to block out the rest of yellow mirror projection.

I'm going to use the existing one as a starting point, install the ground glass adapter and then keep trying different dimensions until it's close enough. If the quality isn't good enough I could have the print outsourced using a more commercial process. The viewfinder doesn't correct for parallax so it won't be accurate close-up, but neither are the other viewfinders - and I mostly shoot infinity any way.

I've included a few image of the viewfinder internals :

The projected image in the viewfinder
B785054E-936F-438E-A51F-D12B7A39E292.jpeg


The acetate viewfinder frame that gets projected into the viewfinder
72DA4D49-2746-4E3F-9BE3-9AA7E41237C7.jpeg


The yellow mirror that projects the frame from the clear outline in the acetate
6695F7D0-FA39-4920-B548-DC983AF76051.jpeg


Just like the Fuji GX617
A8A7DD79-2781-4D56-A9C6-FEA04FF212A7.jpeg

54998013-9150-4706-9D31-75E2580293CE.jpeg
 
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