Parallax problem with 90mm Elmar lens and Voightlander Viewfinder

[drgoose]

Hello everyone, I am having some issues with my 90mm Elmar using it on a IIIf with a voightlander Viewfinder. I am finding that even when I am using the correct distance on the scale and using the outer lines at infinity my framing is not correct. I am having maybe 20% of the frame incorrectly framed on the top (20% too much sky). Is this the correct viewfinder to use with a IIIf?

All help appreciated.

 

[snapguy]

3f

I owned a Leica 3f with a 90mm Elmar and a zoom finder that fit on the cold shoe on the top of the camera but I don't remember who made the finder. I think it was a Leitz. I got rid of the 3f around 1960. At any rate, I seem to remember the parallax adjustment on that finder was manual, a lever at the bottom that you adjusted when you moved in close.

 

[frank]

This is the correct viewfinder to use. And you move the scale to infinity when photographing a DISTANT view, right? And there is still too much sky?

 

[drgoose]

yeap

 

[frank]

So that's not good because setting a shorter distance on the viewfinder scale would result in even more sky. (If I've got my geometry right.)

Is the finder sitting right in the camera's accessory shoe?

If yes, then I think the finder's parallax compensation is out of calibration. I don't know if this can be adjusted.

 

[frank]

You could try putting the finder on an SLR with a 90mm lens (or zoom lens set to 90mm) and compare what you see in the external viewfinder and through the SLR's viewfinder.

 

[Pioneer]

Ok, I have been using the exact same viewfinder (black) with my Elmar 90/f4 on a II with no trouble. In fact it was the first Voigtlander Viewfinder I bought to work with my 90mm APO-Lanthar and it seems pretty well matched up with that lens as well. Parallax correction works pretty well. I'll hook the setup up to my M9 tomorrow and do some testing to see if I notice anything really off but I would suspect that somehow your parallax correction has gotten out of whack.

 

[summicron1]

is it possible the shoe on the camera has been bent over the eons? That would throw the aim off.

I suspect, but have never made measurements to be sure, that the parallax adjustments on the viewfinders even made by Leitz are, at best, an estimate. I'd take a step back and allow a bit of kentucky windage around the edge, which those of us who wear glasses tend to do naturally anyway.

 

[darkosaric]

Hello everyone, I am having some issues with my 90mm Elmar using it on a IIIf with a voightlander Viewfinder. I am finding that even when I am using the correct distance on the scale and using the outer lines at infinity my framing is not correct. I am having maybe 20% of the frame incorrectly framed on the top (20% too much sky). Is this the correct viewfinder to use with a IIIf?

All help appreciated.
View attachment 96617

Same I have when I use 90mm elmar on my M6. Also when I use 50mm on M6. M3 is much much better on infinity, but worse on short distance.
On the end I started to learn/ feel how much more it will be in the negative, and I am ok with this.

 

[Trask]

So that's not good because setting a shorter distance on the viewfinder scale would result in even more sky. (If I've got my geometry right.)

If the lens is focused at infinity and the viewfinder is too, their "cones of imaging" are parallel, and the distance between the two is immaterial given the subject is far away.

As the lens is focused closer, the viewfinder must be tilted down by the tilt mechanism so that its "cone of imaging" is now aiming at the subject which has moved closer to the lens. That's the paradigm: as the subject is drawn closer to the lens, the viewfinder tilts further down; shorter distances would result in less sky. That's one reason the cold shoe is often immediately above the lens, so that the viewfinder need only move up and down along the vertical axis to provide proper imaging.

In a similar fashion, when you have moving framelines in the primary viewfinder on the camera, as in a Leica M-series camera, the frames will move down and to the right (i.e., toward the lens) to compensate for the two parallax differences created by the fact that the viewfinder is both above the lens axis and to the left of the lens axis. Some cameras have frames that even get smaller at the same time to compensate for field size.

As has been noted, using an SLR makes all of this parallax issue moot.

 

[georg16nik]

The CV Viewfinder scale might've been calculated for taller camera bodies than IIIf.

Hello everyone, I am having some issues with my 90mm Elmar using it on a IIIf with a voightlander Viewfinder. I am finding that even when I am using the correct distance on the scale and using the outer lines at infinity my framing is not correct. I am having maybe 20% of the frame incorrectly framed on the top (20% too much sky). Is this the correct viewfinder to use with a IIIf?

All help appreciated.
View attachment 96617