d._p.1 Posted August 13, 2003 Share Posted August 13, 2003 Recently i bought the mamiya 55mm 4.5, for my C330. To my surprise, the actual field of view (as seen on the negative) is MUCH wider (almost twice as wide) than what i see on the focusing screen. Does anyone know of any optical device like screw-on viewfinders to cope with this? <br><br> Or did i miss a thread which covers this topic? <br><br> (Of course i can crop but that leaves me with a surface closer to a 35mm neg than to 6x6...) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
skygzr Posted August 13, 2003 Share Posted August 13, 2003 Something is wrong here. Ive used this lens, and the viewfinder and negative should match very closely. Is it possible that the viewing and taking lenses are mismatched (80mm upper and 55mm lower)? But, it that were the case, one or the other would always be out of focus, except at infinity. Quite a mystery. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
aki_dick Posted August 13, 2003 Share Posted August 13, 2003 I noticed the same with my C220 with the 2.8/80 (black).<br>Couldn't find any help in G.A. Pattersons Mamiya-TLR-bible either.<p>(http://www.btinternet.com/~g.a.patterson/mfaq/m_faq-contents.html)<p>Does the (viewfinder-) field of view also depend on the focal lenght? I'm not sure, I always thought it only depends on the type of the viewfinder.<br>I would appreciate any help too. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rick_sikora Posted August 13, 2003 Share Posted August 13, 2003 D.P. Are you using a chimney finder? The standard waist level finder with the flip up magnifier should give you what you see in the viewfinder. Rick Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
aki_dick Posted August 13, 2003 Share Posted August 13, 2003 I have the standart Waist Level Finder.<br>Unlike D.P. I wouldn't go so far and say that my negative covers almost twice as much as the viewfinder image.<br>I just noticed again today when I got some slides back and was surprised about all the empty space around my girlfriend that I did not see in the viewfinder.<p>I'll try to evaluate the difference with some testshots from a scale and post the results. Might take a while though cause I'm off to holidays first.<p>But just in case someone around here could offer some detailed information, thanks in advance. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
d._p.1 Posted August 13, 2003 Author Share Posted August 13, 2003 Rick, I've been using the nikkor porroflex finder (the simple mirror one). I never noticed any difference with the normal flip-out waist level finder (except of course for the loss of how many f-stops in brightness? - still looking for a good focusing screen...) but I'll check again tonight when i get home. What do you mean with chimney finder? the one with the two different magnifiers that seals off completely at the top, except for the little glass?<br><br>Aki, Maybe it depends on the distance the subject is from the camera? The shot i'm talking of (i'll show it when i've got a decent scan, maybe later this week) is a group portrait of 15 people, say 8, 9 metres wide, at something like 8 metres distance. Through the finder they filled the frame from left to right, on the neg there is 4 metres to their left and right to crop. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
d._p.1 Posted August 13, 2003 Author Share Posted August 13, 2003 wait, i got it wrong - for the group portrait i used the WLF, not the porro. But another shot, meant to be a head-and-bit-of-neck portrait, with the 55mm and the porro (trying to exagerate his nose), turned out to be a head-and-lots-of-shoulder portrait. <br><br>So i don't think the finder is to blame. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mjd Posted August 13, 2003 Share Posted August 13, 2003 You are talking about parallax error, right? That is, you see more of the person's shoulders but less of the head than you originally intended. You are not actually seeing more of everything as you suggested in your first post. Get yourself a Paramender. It'll fix any parallax discrepancies, which I should note, will be more significant for 1) shorter lenses and 2) with decreasing focus distance. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
skygzr Posted August 13, 2003 Share Posted August 13, 2003 Marcelo has a good point. Your 330 has a little moving bar in the viewfinder that marks the real top-of-frame. It also has a knob where you can set what focal length lens you are using (different lenses have different parallax corrections). Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lemastre Posted August 13, 2003 Share Posted August 13, 2003 The C330 negative contains an appreciable amount of image more than the viewing screen shows. Not as much as you suggest, though. However, the parallax bar is right on the actual top of the image, if the knob on the side of the camera is set to match your lens. So if the bar cuts off some of your subject's hair, you can count on the top of neg doing the same. I've never calculated the actual percent the viewfinder covers. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
custom film holders for fl Posted August 13, 2003 Share Posted August 13, 2003 Could it be that you are used to 100% viewfinder coverage in your other cameras? I know when I switched to a MF camera from my Nikon which had a 100% veiwfinder, I had to learn to compensate. I wrote Mamiya and they said that the coverage was only 93%. This is a different type of camera, but I wouldn't be surprised if the C series had less than 100% coverage. Just a thought... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
richard_cochran Posted August 14, 2003 Share Posted August 14, 2003 I have a C330 with the 55mm f4.5, and the view on the screen matches the final negative almost perfectly -- at least close enough that I don't notice a difference. Of course, at close distances, I use the parallax bar to see how much of the top will be cut off, but even then, the field of view is virtually identical between the viewing and taking lenses, it's just that the viewing lens is looking up higher. A similar amount will be ADDED to the bottom of the negative as is cut off from the top. Besides, you were talking about WIDTH above, and that's not affected by parallax. <p> The only finder that won't match the lens is the sportfinder, since it's not using the viewing lens at all. Any of the finders that view an image from the focusing screen should show very nearly the same field of view that will appear on the negative. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
d._p.1 Posted August 14, 2003 Author Share Posted August 14, 2003 Richard, how would you compare the field of view, through the viewfinder, of the 55mm with, say, your 35mm equipment (i take it you have any?) My nikon 35mm 2.5 (yes, the plastic 'E'-series!) has, in the viewfinder, a *wider* field of view. Slightly wider. So compared to that, i would rate teh mamiya 55 as a 38mm in 35mm equivalent (here terminology gets confusing - in dutch we call 35mm film 'kleinbeeld', small format. it would make sense to use this term, SF, next to MF and LF, instead of 35mm - wouldn't it). <br><br>b.t.w., marcelo et al., thank you for suggesting, but I am aware of the topic 'paralax'. In fact i recently picked up a paramender, lovely little gadget. But the problem, as mentioned, is about width, not height. <br><br>still waiting for the scan of the group portrait... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
d._p.1 Posted August 14, 2003 Author Share Posted August 14, 2003 to be precise: "i would rate teh mamiya 55 as a 38mm in 35mm equivalent" but *only* on the focussing screen. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
skygzr Posted August 14, 2003 Share Posted August 14, 2003 Since the camera takes square pictures, it seem strange that it could be OK top to bottom but wrong left to right. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
d._p.1 Posted August 18, 2003 Author Share Posted August 18, 2003 <a href="http://www.photo.net/photo/1691323&size=sm">here</a> is the original, and <a href="http://www.photo.net/photo/1691326&size=sm"> this</a> is the corrected version. <br><br>I had placed the bottom of the frame only slightly below their feet, much less than visible here. The group is standing between lines on the ground marking the left and right limits of what I saw in the viewfinder. At least, I asked them to (maybe they just didnt obey, maybe thats part of the cause of my concern). <br><br>Anyway, lesson learnt. And after all its just luck because with the originally intended framing, the corrected cversion would have been impossible. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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