Make your own optical viewfinder... help!

[Jon in Tombstone]

Can't expect Ricoh to put even a basic optical viewfinder in the GR IV... must be too crowded in there.

Years (and years) ago, I had a small foldable Kodak optical viewfinder, that went into the flash hotshoe. Not very accurate, but not bad. Could I make a new one? See sketch below, my starting point.

But there's an immediate problem. What material to use? The two sighting parts must go up and down... up qpwhen you take a picture, then folded down when you put the GR back in your shirt pocket. So first, the OV can't be too thick... or when folded, the GR won't fit in your shirt pocket.

Next, the hinges that let the front and back sights move up and down. Do you have to have hinges... or is there some material that can be bent, retain its new shape in up position, and then be bent back again to close... without the back and forth bending breaking it?

Calling on all DpReview amateur designers here. Am having fun thinking about this, and I hope you do too!

 

[TonyGamble]

Any use?

Simple DIY Wire Sport / Viewfinder

This has been on my drawing board for a while now, and I finally managed to cobble together a prototype: a simple, wire sports finder / viewfinder similar to the ones on Speed and Crown Graphics, but without doing irreversible damage to a vintage camera. The wire is 1/16 dia. brass tubing...

www.largeformatphotography.info

T

 

[BG_DPREVIEW]

You could add a spring to open it, and a small lach to hold it when closed. I have the original ovf for the gr iiix and never use it.



little by little, all my wishes a camera should have , broke down now i have griiix, i am at the point of buying a griii, just need a black one .

 

[Jon in Tombstone]

Thanks Tony... that wire viewfinder sure brought back memories of my old Speed Graphic. I'ts long gone now, but I can daydream about having it again with some sort of HUGE 4x5 digital back. When I was a boy, my Mom's husband was a newspaper reporter, and he taught me to develop those 4x5s in the basement under red light. As an adult, I bought an old Graphic and then showed my son. But time went by, and by then in the 1980s I had a Nikkormat, and then more years went by, and here I am with a GR. Progress!

 

[Jon in Tombstone]

Found! Stored in a drawer since I moved here in 2017, a small foldable old Kodak viewfinder. Years ago, I had a Kodak Pony 35mm camera, and probably got the little viewfinder way back then, in what, the 1980s?

Little on the Pony, but huge on the GR. Sticks out beyond both the camera's front and back. Which immediately means that I can't put the GR in my shirt pocket anymore. Not even going to try it out tomorrow, because of that. No, will wait until a used Panasonic FZ 1000 II comes next week from Keh. Which I will have to wear around my neck on a strap, and the little Kodak viewfinder may be very useful then.


Of interest... took these pix with an iPhone. Look at the dust on my GR! But actually, it's clean. Dust free. Honest. Look at the GR pic on my Thumbgrip From Leica post... took that with the Ricoh WG-8, no dust. There must be something in the Apple sensor, or software, that generates little white dots on a black background. Better not use an iPhone for product photography!