Bronica MF finder S - any good? use as loupe?

I'm new to medium format. Plan to buy a SQ-A soon and want to know if the MF

"chimney" finder S is any good. I know it doesn't give a laterally correct

image. How is the optical quality? How accurate and sensitive is the meter?

 

Although I have a sekonic 608 meter, I figure having a TTL meter might help me

when I use extension tube or even bellow for macro in the future.

 

Another question is, can I use it as a loupe to view 6x6 slide? If it does and

does it well, I can simply use the chimney and save money from not buying a

loupe. Kill two birds with one stone.

 

thanks for your insight.

 

Jack

The chimney finder doesn't have a meter, you will need a metered prism for that. They also make a non metered prism I believe. I have the ETRSi and only use the in-prism meter as a sanity check for my hand meter. I doubt it would work very well for viewing slides.

I don't own one (yet), but the KEH site indicates the SQ family chimney finder has a meter. I believe it is uncoupled, that is you have to set the exposure based on the reading -- a "manual exposure meter finder."

 

DaveT

The meter in the chimney finder is coupled "match-diode." I have sold all my Bronica SQ stuff, but I liked the chimney finder - in my experience, accurate enough for slide film. And - an adjustable dioptre. Last time I looked on the KEH site, I was surprised to see how much they were asking for one of these. Before the great digital invasion, I paid little over US$ 100 for one used.

Has anyone tried using the chimney finder as a loupe to view 6x6 slide?

 

What's the magnification rating? Does it work well?

 

Since the chimney is designed to view the 6x6 ground glass in the camera, and any coma or distortion will cause a lot of frustration in using it for this purpose, I imagine that it should work just as well to view 6x6 slide too. Right?

I don't think you would want to use it as a loupe. You might scratch the glass, which is more or less flush with the bottom of the unit. And there isn't much magnification: slightly less than you get with standard flip up waist level finder and its magnifier. Optical quality is fine. It has two CdS cells and is basically an averaging type. It turns itself off automatically after 10 seconds or so. EV4 to 16 with ISO100 film.

 

The S finder does have half-stop shutter speed settings: eg, 1/60, 1/90(?), 1/125, etc, and that is a very useful feature.

 

It runs off the camera body battery: no additional batteries to carry.

 

It is fairly light at 200g. The ME Prism finder has the same circuit but is much heavier and bulkier.