I've been meaning to show off a little mod that I did earlier this year on the Soviet "Smena Symbol" 35mm scale-focusing viewfinder camera. This is not a step-by-step how-to (because I didn't take any pictures along the way) but rather the finished product with some commentary. However, it's not very hard to mod this camera so I think it's mostly somewhat self-explanatory.
The Smena has an interesting lens (40mm f4 glass triplet) but a number of flaws (mine can't advance film past 24 exposures) and, to me, the viewfinder is the most prominent annoyance. The original VF is not too small and bright enough but, unless you position your eye *just so*, it's not actually a good representation of what the camera sees. It doesn't have much eye relief either and the edges are fuzzy and hard to see if you wear glasses. The Smena really wants something more useable!
To remedy this, we need a donor VF that's actually any good.
Cue: the Canon Prima 5.
A nice AF POS with a 38 mm lens (close enough to our 40mm Smena) and a VF with tons of eye relief and, more importantly, reflective framelines with parallax correction marks. Mine was dead as a doornail so I wasn't careful when extracting the VF. It comes out in one piece together with the AF-eyes which I removed by hacksaw.
Now:
1. In order to remove the Smena's VF assembly you unscrew the top cover (two screws at the far ends on top of the camera) and bend the thin metal brackets that hold the VF in place with a screwdriver or similar until they break off. (Note: the top cover doesn't detach all the way because the rewind lever is welded on, but you can swivel it away to get to the insides.) No need to be gentle, the brackets are flimsy and the plastic is very thick and sturdy. There's a blob of glue that also holds the VF housing in place, so scrape that away with the screwdriver.
2. Now you can simply pull out the VF housing by applying some pressure to the trim around the back eye piece. Eventually the whole thing will dislodge and can then be pulled out the front like so:
(As you can see this is not rocket science)
3. And now comes the part that's maybe a bit like the "How to draw an owl" meme:
The top of the VF housing simply pops off and the front glass, front lens and back lens are removed. We don't need the latter two, so feel free to discard them. We'll keep the tiny glass pane that sits at the very front. The inside of the housing has just enough room to accomodate the elements of the Canon Prima's VF but we do need to make room with the dremel. The Canon's VF is cut in half, leaving the loose front lens and the bit of plastic housing that holds the back lens with the actual framelines and the half mirror that reflects the framelines back into your eye. The spacing between the latter two is critical for the framelines to actually be in focus when you look through the VF, so I found it easiest to just insert that part of the housing into the Smena's VF housing.
Here is the finished product:
The Smena's original VF front lens sits further back from the piece of glass that's slotted at the very front. You have to carefully dremel away at the recess until the new lens sits as far forward as possible without breaking the bezel holding the front glass, otherwise there won't be enough room to accomodate the rest of the VF. The housing with the mirror and back lens is very closely fitted behind, basically you can just about wedge the whole thing in there.
You can now look through the back and see the VF view but you *do* have to make sure the frame lines are dead center on the X and Y axis, otherwise the VF will just be off. This is achieved by making a bit more room than necessary for the mirror/back lens housing and then checking the framelines against the film plane with a TLR focusing screen , carefully tilting and swiveling the mirror/back lens until it's just so and then shimming it in place with a folded strip of paper. I did this indoors with the camera on a tripod, lights off, using a bright window as a target to line up the edges of the framelines with the edges of the film plane field-of-view. This may sound more difficult than it is, or I was lucky getting it right early on.
4. This is easy: just cover the top of the VF housing to prevent light from getting in there and causing (additional) reflections. I use this cardboard-y packing tape that sticks very well but also can be removed without residue.
Now you can simply pop the VF housing back into the top of the camera like so:
It's a tight fit, so no need for glue. If you want it out again just apply pressure to the eye piece and it will come out again.
Voila: Smena Symbol with 38 mm framelines!
For reflective framelines, the Canon Prima's VF is pretty good. You can see there are some reflections at the bottom because I didn't dare remove the lenses again after getting the framelines centered. Otherwise I would have caulked up the inside of the VF more to prevent light bouncing around.
I ran a roll of Kodak Gold through the camera (in January in Germany, so it's all f4 or f5.6) to test the framing and I was pleasantly surprised:
So there you have it: It's now possible to achieve the basic task of framing subjects with some degree of accuracy with the Smena Symbol 35mm camera.
The Smena has an interesting lens (40mm f4 glass triplet) but a number of flaws (mine can't advance film past 24 exposures) and, to me, the viewfinder is the most prominent annoyance. The original VF is not too small and bright enough but, unless you position your eye *just so*, it's not actually a good representation of what the camera sees. It doesn't have much eye relief either and the edges are fuzzy and hard to see if you wear glasses. The Smena really wants something more useable!
To remedy this, we need a donor VF that's actually any good.
Cue: the Canon Prima 5.
A nice AF POS with a 38 mm lens (close enough to our 40mm Smena) and a VF with tons of eye relief and, more importantly, reflective framelines with parallax correction marks. Mine was dead as a doornail so I wasn't careful when extracting the VF. It comes out in one piece together with the AF-eyes which I removed by hacksaw.
Now:
1. In order to remove the Smena's VF assembly you unscrew the top cover (two screws at the far ends on top of the camera) and bend the thin metal brackets that hold the VF in place with a screwdriver or similar until they break off. (Note: the top cover doesn't detach all the way because the rewind lever is welded on, but you can swivel it away to get to the insides.) No need to be gentle, the brackets are flimsy and the plastic is very thick and sturdy. There's a blob of glue that also holds the VF housing in place, so scrape that away with the screwdriver.
2. Now you can simply pull out the VF housing by applying some pressure to the trim around the back eye piece. Eventually the whole thing will dislodge and can then be pulled out the front like so:
(As you can see this is not rocket science)
3. And now comes the part that's maybe a bit like the "How to draw an owl" meme:
The top of the VF housing simply pops off and the front glass, front lens and back lens are removed. We don't need the latter two, so feel free to discard them. We'll keep the tiny glass pane that sits at the very front. The inside of the housing has just enough room to accomodate the elements of the Canon Prima's VF but we do need to make room with the dremel. The Canon's VF is cut in half, leaving the loose front lens and the bit of plastic housing that holds the back lens with the actual framelines and the half mirror that reflects the framelines back into your eye. The spacing between the latter two is critical for the framelines to actually be in focus when you look through the VF, so I found it easiest to just insert that part of the housing into the Smena's VF housing.
Here is the finished product:
The Smena's original VF front lens sits further back from the piece of glass that's slotted at the very front. You have to carefully dremel away at the recess until the new lens sits as far forward as possible without breaking the bezel holding the front glass, otherwise there won't be enough room to accomodate the rest of the VF. The housing with the mirror and back lens is very closely fitted behind, basically you can just about wedge the whole thing in there.
You can now look through the back and see the VF view but you *do* have to make sure the frame lines are dead center on the X and Y axis, otherwise the VF will just be off. This is achieved by making a bit more room than necessary for the mirror/back lens housing and then checking the framelines against the film plane with a TLR focusing screen , carefully tilting and swiveling the mirror/back lens until it's just so and then shimming it in place with a folded strip of paper. I did this indoors with the camera on a tripod, lights off, using a bright window as a target to line up the edges of the framelines with the edges of the film plane field-of-view. This may sound more difficult than it is, or I was lucky getting it right early on.
4. This is easy: just cover the top of the VF housing to prevent light from getting in there and causing (additional) reflections. I use this cardboard-y packing tape that sticks very well but also can be removed without residue.
Now you can simply pop the VF housing back into the top of the camera like so:
It's a tight fit, so no need for glue. If you want it out again just apply pressure to the eye piece and it will come out again.
Voila: Smena Symbol with 38 mm framelines!
For reflective framelines, the Canon Prima's VF is pretty good. You can see there are some reflections at the bottom because I didn't dare remove the lenses again after getting the framelines centered. Otherwise I would have caulked up the inside of the VF more to prevent light bouncing around.
I ran a roll of Kodak Gold through the camera (in January in Germany, so it's all f4 or f5.6) to test the framing and I was pleasantly surprised:
So there you have it: It's now possible to achieve the basic task of framing subjects with some degree of accuracy with the Smena Symbol 35mm camera.
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