SLR Finders. How Sharp? How Bright? How Good?

Bennett Sherman, in Modern Photography's April 1963 issue, takes an in depth look at these issues.

 

 

SLR Finders 1 sm 2

Nine slide films are tested to see how they do in both the sun and the shade.

 

 

9 Films Tested 1 sm 2

A Minolta SR-7 is tested in this month's Modern Tests.

 

 

MT 1 sm 2

Keppler looks at bellows for your SLR.

 

 

Bellows 1 sm 2

Here is the Keppler on the SLR column.

 

 

Keppler 1 sm 2

So what do you think of these predictions in the Sound Advice column?

 

 

SA 1 sm 2

Here is this month's Too Hot to Handle column.

 

 

THTH 1 sm 2

Here is an interesting Behind the Scenes column.

 

 

BTS 1 sm 2

Here are this month's camera equipment ads.

 

 

Agfa 1 sm 2

Here are this month's dealer ads.

 

 

Bass 1 sm 2

It's really nice to have Keppler back again, if only in memory... Thanks

 

The projections for "sound advice" are like most predictions - based on quasi-linear interpolations from existing technology.

 

Like those fan-powered balloons, it hardly ever gets close to subsequent reality.

Thanks Marc for these posts. The bellows article is a great resource, and I must agree with Keppler on close-up lenses. Thrilled to see the Contarex ad - I have that model and should use it more often.

 

I believe that there may be a page missing, #55, in the otherwise very complete SLR prism article.

Thank you, Marc. The article on the SLR viewfinders raised a number of issues that had never occurred to me before...Fascinating reading. My old favourite the Minolta SR-7 gets a good review, though I was surprised that the 58mm Rokkor PF f/1.4 didn't fare better in the test.

Julio - Thanks for that I will check it out.

JDM - I thought the idea of memory packs with no moving parts was interesting.

 

Rick - Their previous test of this lens wasn't much better. They did another test in November 1966 which also looked the same. I too was surprised.

Julio - I added the missing page to the SLR Finders article. Thanks again for catching this error.

Your are welcome, Marc, and thanks again for the post.

Not having actually tried one of the early leaf shutter SLRs which had the split image focusing aid, I'm wondering why this feature seemed to be absent (except for changing screens) on SLRs for a number of years. By mid 70's some Konica SLRs came with split image as did Minolta XE series and the Yashica FR (and others). And of course a bit later the Canon AE-1, AV-1, AT-1, etc. My Nikkormat FT-3 has split image.