ondebanks

<blockquote> <p>i actually hated the crop factor that the CFV created with my 40--it is one thing that is making me eager to try film again after a decade. maybe i am justifying its sale, but i'm starting to think i've been forcing a square peg into a round hole with the use of the CFV and losing an integral part of the look of my work (the wide angle part).</p> </blockquote> <p>Perhaps you could look at it this way - the CFV is still a pretty big sensor; 50% more area than a 35mm full-frame. So what's really preventing you from getting the wide angle look is not so much the digital back as the Hasselblad V SLR lens range, which hits its rectilinear wide limit with your 40mm lens.</p> <p>Other digital medium format systems go substantially wider: Mamiya and Hasselblad H both have 28mm rectilinears, Pentax and Leica have 24mm rectilinears, and Mamiya has a 24mm fisheye which can be converted to rectilinear in software [i do exactly that with the fisheye & my Kodak DCS645M back , which has the same sensor as your CFV-16; see my examples below]. I understand that you hate big crop factors, but in these cases, there is either a lower crop factor than with your CFV setup [crop is from 645-native lenses rather than 6x6-native lenses], or the lens was designed from scratch just for the cropped digital sensors.<br> BTW when I de-fish my 24mm images, I call it "my digital Biogon", because it matches (actually exceeds) the image field of view of the legendary 38mm Biogon on 6x6 film in the Hasselblad SWC, and both are square format. The optical performance of this Mamiya lens is particularly excellent too.<br> <img src="http://imageshack.com/a/img633/7752/kj478x.jpg" alt="" /></p> <p><img src="http://imageshack.com/a/img911/7557/T3gsF9.jpg" alt="" /></p> <p><img src="http://imageshack.com/a/img907/948/2LQz0X.jpg" alt="" /></p> <p><img src="http://imageshack.com/a/img905/7240/qUSxqi.jpg" alt="" /></p>

<p>Having read most of your post, and noticing that you were quoting prices in £, I was about to say forget about the Plusteks and Reflectas, and point you to Ffordes who have a bunch of Nikon LS8000ED scanners at £949...but then I got to this bit:</p> <blockquote> <p>If I want good results I have to buy a £1000-2000 secondhand 6 year old scanner with no tech support, no servicing options, no guarantee the drivers will still work with modern OS's and no modern things (like 48-bit support, not that 48-bit is that necessary.... but still...).</p> </blockquote> <p>...so I'll just back away slowly...</p> <p>Seriously though, the only worry with this Nikon LS8000ED deal is servicing. The hardware interface is Firewire, which is still very well supported. Drivers and modern OS's? Not a problem - Vuescan has its <a href="http://www.hamrick.com/vuescan/nikon_ls_8000.html">own drivers for the LS8000ED under Windows, Mac and Linux</a>. What other tech support does anyone need with a scanner anyway? They're very simple devices, and the internet has fellow users to ask if you do have an issue. It has multi-sampling and Digital ICE and they are more important 'modern' features IMO than the 42-bit/48-bit question. </p> <p>I'd also look seriously at the DSLR + macro lens + stitching alternative, though. Not suitable for bulk film scanning, but I'm going to give it a go sometime. It should majorly outresolve my Epson 4990; I just need to come up with a rig to ensure that dust, flatness and focusing/dof are not issues.</p>

<blockquote> <p>I used a friend's PhaseOne 645 with a 40MP back and an 80mm lens and I really like the quality of the images.<br> but he had leaf shutter lenses, which are a bit out of my price range now.</p> </blockquote> <p>Putting this together, I infer that your friend has a Mamiya/Phase One 645DF or 645DF+ body, or maybe he's lucky enough to have a new 645XF. These models are the only ones to work with the new Schneider leaf shutter lenses. But they dropped film back compatilbility.</p> <blockquote> <p>The question I have is what would be the best body (645 body) to buy to get started that will allow me to start with a film back and then perhaps move on to a digital back if I feel this is something I want to continue.</p> </blockquote> <p>The obvious answer - drop back a generation or two from your friend's camera to a Mamiya 645AFD III, aka Phase One 645AF [it had dual and somewhat confusing branding, as the first SLR to bear the Phase One logo since the merger with Mamiya]. This was the final model in the line to have dual film/digital back capability. But it cannot operate the Schneider leaf shutter lenses.</p> <p>The earlier 645 AFD and 645 AFD II are very similar to it; the updates were minor and incremental (and for some people like myself, certain things within the updates actually worsened handling or operational convenience). I use a 645 AFD for both film & digital backs and am very happy with it.</p> <p>These models work with all the manual focus M645 lenses - some tremendous bargains and unique lenses without autofocus counterparts - as well as the non-leaf-shutter AF Mamiya/Phase One lenses. </p> <blockquote> <p>With the newer high-speed sync lighting systems from Profoto and Elinchrom, are LS lenses necessary?</p> </blockquote> <p>I don't know enough about lighting to answer that.</p> <blockquote> <p>[Jochen:] the light systems you metioned are probably not the cheapest.</p> </blockquote> <p>Indeed, probably not the cheapest, but have you seen the prices of the Schneider leaf-shutter lenses for the 645 line? The price of the body to access those lenses is also higher. High price is an argument which probably cancels out on both sides.</p>

<p>For landscapes and portraits, I would pick the 645D, no question.</p> <p>The Nikon gives you two things - high ISO, and live view for focusing - which are nice but not essential to those applications. </p>

<blockquote> <p>What is changed in the scanner during multipass?</p> </blockquote> <p>The amount of intensity information it acquires for each pixel location.</p> <blockquote> <p>Averaging the results doesn't provide deeper penetration.</p> </blockquote> <p>It does, if a single sample has not recorded the densest areas with sufficient S/N.<br> Observational astronomy research (which is my profession, BTW) would still be in the 19th Century if this were not the case!</p> <blockquote> <p>You can't get more than the dMax maximum of the scanner's design.</p> </blockquote> <p>You can, because the dMax is specified from the performance of a single pass. Mainly because most scanners don't support multipass so it maintains a level playing field, and perhaps also to prevent manufacturers from advertising unrealistically good numbers that could only be achieved with a zillion passes.<br> Also bear in mind the <a href="http://www.kenrockwell.com/tech/scantek.htm">caveat on whether a scanner manufacturer is quoting dMax (possibly attained only by overexposing the highlights) or DR</a>.</p> <p>In the same way, digital (still) camera manufacturers quote DR based on a single frame; because again, averaging frames can increase DR at the faint end, but few photographers combine frames, and there has to be a common standard.</p> <p>In the digital video camera sector, because taking rapid sequential frames is the nature of the camera, the opposite seems to be true: firms quote enormous DR for their cameras, as they can take advantage of temporal frame averaging.</p> <p>Look, this is all basic measurement science. I don't get why you are still so opposed to what has long been established and proven fact. If you are unfamiliar with it, fine; hit google or wikipedia with some of the terms I used above, and you soon will understand it. </p> <p>I'm not going to the trouble of doing fresh scans just to prove this all over again. If you still need convincing, get the free trial of Vuescan Pro Edition (it just watermarks the scans) and see for yourself on a dark Velvia slide.</p>

<p>Since you are willing to consider anything from an RZ67 SLR to a Mamiya Universal rangefinder to a 4x5 view camera...you seem very flexible on the camera/lenses side. Does it really have to be a detachable back? Because if not, then a fixed-back "giant 35mm" 6x6 SLR like the Pentacon Six TL would fit the bill.</p> <p>I'm intrigued as to why the film travel direction matters, though.</p>

<p>A few years back, I described how I did something like this, adapting the lens cells from a couple of modern Bronica SQ PS lenses into the shutters & barrels of some old Mamiya Press lenses. Most smaller view-camera lenses use a size 0 shutter, as do the lenses of the Mamiya Press and Mamiya TLRs, Bronica SLRs, Hasselblads, Rollies, etc. So their lens cells just screw into the front and rear of the shutters of the Press lenses. You just need an adjustable lens spanner.</p> <p>The tricky part is getting the lens at the right distance from the body to reach at least infinity focus if not to cover the full focal range. Ways to do this are:<br> 1) choose the appropriate Press "host lens"...obviously there are short and long barrelled ones;<br> 2) the collapsible 90 and 100 mm lenses give an extra degree of distance variation;<br> 3) there are sets of different length extension tubes and even back spacers.</p> <p>The adapted lens will not be rangefinder coupled (unless by coincidence it has the same focal length as the "host lens" had, and no tubes etc. are used). So focus is either by hyperfocal setting, or by what you might call "calibrated guesstimation", or for best results by using a ground-glass back. </p>

<blockquote> <p>The sampling techniques you show are blurring the background, something you can similarly do with"blur" and other tools in Photoshop.</p> </blockquote> <p>It's not blurring! I made that clear already. The background becomes smoother in multi-sampling purely because of improved signal to noise, separately achieved at each and every pixel without reference to their adjacent pixels.</p> <p>Blurring - of the Photoshop kind - means applying a convolution kernel which redistributes signal and noise around adjacent pixels. That trades a gain - improved local smoothness - against a loss - a decrease in spatial resolution ie. a softer image. But overall signal to noise doesn't change, because it's just pushing around the same original signal and the same original noise. Because of this, the background would become smoother in convolution-based blurring, but the stars would become harder to see. On the contrary, in my example of multi-sampling, the stars have become easier to see.</p> <blockquote> <p>Showing additional star "spots" in the black background of space is not a real world test.<br> Show me real world samples, not a picture of space with clipped blacks and clipped whites.</p> </blockquote> <p>It's not the black background of space - it's the grey background of the real sky over my garden. How is that not a real world test? It's not some simulation. It's real. Also, there are no clipped blacks, other than in the few small dirt smudges. The sky background airglow - by definition present at all points in the image, including where the stars are - sets the absolute floor of intensity for an image like this. And as everyone here can see, the sky is rendered as shades of grey, not clipped black.</p> <p>Clipped whites are not of relevance here: I clipped them post-scan so that the background improvements would be more visible - in order to provide you with the evidence you asked for.</p> <blockquote> <p>can be more simply done using the shadow slider in PS to bring out the details although with a increase in noise.</p> </blockquote> <p>Bingo. Anyone can shift the levels of an imge to an arbitary output intensity, but as you say, the boosted signal comes with boosted noise: there's no improvement in signal to noise. But there is an improvement in signal to noise with multi-sampling, and I've demonstrated it above.</p> <blockquote> <p>Additionally, you have not stated how multipass sampling can bring out more details. You're not digging a hole where each additional scoop gets you more dirt.</p> </blockquote> <p>It's not a great analogy, but I'll play with it: You are re-digging the same hole, over and over. The goal is to dig a hole of the correct size - analagous to measuring a pixel at the correct intensity. Because of digging imprecision, each hole you dig will be a little too big, or too small, or maybe almost just right now and again. The point is that the <em>average</em> size of all the holes will be closer to the correct size than any individual hole attempt...the <em>average</em> intensity of all the samples at that pixel location will be closer to the correct intensity than any individual sample (bar the occasional statistically lucky one).</p> <p>This is how and why multi-sampling works. In the holes analogy, the error in the hole size is the noise in the measurement. Taking the average reduces that error; reduces that noise. When you take N independent samples of something which follows a Poisson distribution (as photon counts of light do) or a Gaussian distribution (as scanner readout noise does), you improve the signal to noise by a factor equal to the square-root of N. 16 samples (my default setting in Vuescan) therefore improves S/N by a factor of 4. It's a little more complicated by the fact that both types of noise distribution are present at a scanned pixel to different degrees, but as I said, a standard noise model (combining the noise contributions in quadrature) accounts for that.</p> <p>The next thing to consider is this: if 16-pass sampling improves the S/N of all scanned pixels, from the darkest to just below the saturation point, by a factor of sqrt(16)=4, does that mean that all pixels <em>look</em> 4 times better? The answer is 'no', because our human vision cannot discriminate as well between high S/N information as it can between low S/N information. An image detail with S/N of 100 looks virtually the same as one with S/N of 400. But a detail with S/N of 1 looks horrendous compared to one with S/N of 4. In fact, S/N of 1 is at the threshold of discrimination from noise (it would satisfy an engineer's definition of a detectable signal, but not an astronomer's), while S/N of 4 is clearly visible; which is why more stars emerged from the previously obscuring noise when I activated multi-pass scanning.</p> <p>That is why I chose the example of a very dark (but not black) sky with faint stars for my test comparison. The relative gains in signal to noise are indeed the same for the brighter stars, but less perceptible, so I had no qualms about clipping them.</p> <blockquote> <p>Assuming you can increase the scanner's light output, the amplifiers and sensors measuring the photons will cause distortions and more noise.</p> </blockquote> <p>If you send more light through the film to the sensor, noise impact will decrease, not increase - this is the nature of Poisson statistics. But you will saturate the pixels which receive light through clearer areas of the film; you won't capture that end of the photo's DR. So it's not a free lunch.<br> I'm not sure what you mean by "distortions" in this context?</p>

<blockquote> <p>Multi sampling and multi scanning give less sharp details because of combining samples so i understand from others who have tried them.</p> </blockquote> <p>Alan, as I said, multi scanning can misregister the iterated scans and hence blur details - but multi sampling emphatically <em>does not</em> blur details (and cannot, when you think about what is actually happening...I thought I had explained it rather clearly).</p> <blockquote> <p>There are others who claim that these techniques bring out the shadows better but I have yet to see a posted example that proves it.</p> </blockquote> <p>I ran such tests about 10 years ago, before I bought Vuescan. Here is a crop of a dark slidefilm photo [a short startrail image].<br> First: normal sampling:</p> <p><img src="http://imageshack.com/a/img633/9431/SriWRv.jpg" alt="" /></p> <p>Now, multipass sampling:</p> <p><img src="http://imageshack.com/a/img633/6209/nMe1Ik.jpg" alt="" /><br> The improvement is obvious. Lower noise, smoother background sky, real signal reinforced, more faint stars revealed. Even the dirt smudges on the film are clearer!</p> <blockquote> <p>The dMax of the machine is set by the manufacturer to give the max light to penetrate on the first scan. Subsequent scans or samplings won't penetrate deeper. The light isn't a shovel. These are just selling points contrived by Vuescan.</p> </blockquote> <p>You are ignoring the nature of noise and measurement - and in the process, you are doing Vuescan (and its creator, Ed Hamrick) a grave injustice. Yes, you can reach into the shadows in a single sample. But you'll only do so at a poor signal-to-noise ratio. Multiple independent samples, when combined internally by Vuescan or any similarly-functional software, DO genuinely improve signal to noise, and hence pull more details (not resolution, but tonal differences) out of the shadow areas.</p>

<blockquote> <p>Multi pass scanning is a technique to combine several scans together to reduce scanning noise. The problem is most scanners have repositioning errors that limit it's effectiveness. This scanner (by whatever black magic) has the ability to take several samples while the scanning head is in the same position.</p> </blockquote> <p>The 'black magic' of <em>multi-sampling</em> is simply that the scan CCD dwells on each position for a while, taking multiple independent exposures, before being stepped forwards to the next line to scan. At each pixel, the scan software averages the data from this stack of exposures, reducing random noise in the CCD (readout noise) and in the nature of measuring light itself (Poisson noise).</p> <p>It is a smarter technique than <em>multi-pass scanning</em>, where the scan CCD is passed over the entire image repeatedly. They should in theory generate identical results for an identical number of samples/passes, but when revisiting the same piece of film, the stepper motors never quite line up the scan CCD with the sub-pixel precision required.</p> <p>Vuescan supports both modes in several scanners, such as my old Epson 4990 Photo. I can't remember if the EpsonScan software supplied with the 4990 can do multi-pass scanning, but it definitely cannot do multi-sampling.</p>

<blockquote> <p>How will you use movements handheld?</p> </blockquote> <p>I understood that his intentions were not to do both simultaneously. He states:</p> <blockquote> <p>I would love to be able to have one camera that could suit all my needs.</p> </blockquote> <p>...i.e. he wants something which can both be used on a tripod for movements, AND be taken around handheld for the kind of shooting he's been doing to date with his Mamiya 645 Pro.</p>

<blockquote> <p>it seems the shutter is stuck, as I am now getting the Error 1 message</p> </blockquote> <p>This could be a sign of an impending fatal shutter failure. We discussed a very similar issue in this 2011 thread: http://www.photo.net/medium-format-photography-forum/00ZiqW<br> I'd return it on a repair-or-full-refund basis.</p> <p> </p>

<blockquote> <p>In fact in absolute terms you'll gain as many sq mm by moving from 645 to 67 than you would by moving from 35mm to 645</p> </blockquote> <p>That's true, but like anything else, impact depends more on relative change than on absolute change. Give an extra €40k annual income to someone who has been making €20k and that boost to €60k makes a massive difference to their standard of living; give the same €40k to someone who has been making €60k already and the boost to €100k has a large but more nuanced impact. (I chose those numbers because they are in the same proportion as the usable frame areas of 35mm, 645 and 6x7). </p>

<blockquote> <p>I keep reading that 6x7 negatives and slides are "huge" and somehow "magical" and that 6x4.5 is not such a big step up from 35mm.</p> </blockquote> <p>Only people who've never done the simple calculations would say such a thing. 645 is 2.7 times the area of 35mm (gain of 170%); 6x7 is 1.7 times the area of 645 (gain of 70%). The step from 35mm to 645 is decisive; ask anyone who has shot both. If you print them both in any aspect ratio from 4:3 down to square 1:1 (including standard dimensions of 10x8, A4 etc.), the cropping now makes the usable area of 645 exactly 3.0 times larger (gain of 200%) than the usable area of 35mm.</p> <p>In film, I've shot 35mm, 645, 6x6, 6x7 and 6x9. Out of these, I now only shoot 645. The others were bigger, sure; their quality was generally a little better; but other factors like lens choice, lens speed, handling, camera features, and digital compatibility win the argument in favour of 645 - for me.</p> <blockquote> <p>The [645] negatives are nearly twice the size of 35 mm film, which is not a bad thing.</p> </blockquote> <p>Given the actual numbers I've quoted above, "nearly thrice" would be a lot more accurate!</p>

<p>Keep using the lens; it will be absolutely fine. To prevent any flare, the standard remedy is to cover the chip with black ink/paint. Light cannot then scatter off it onto the film. For an extreme case of when this treatment was used, see <a href="http://astroanecdotes.com/2015/03/26/the-mcdonald-gun-shooting-incident/">here</a>!</p> <p>Blacking out an inner portion of an optic is equivalent to setting up a "central obstruction"; far larger ones are standard in reflecting telescopes, like the Hubble Space Telescope. In your case, it will result in a negligible loss of light and of contrast in relatively flat or featureless areas. It will have no impact on resolution of detail.</p>

<p>...Follow up on my earlier reply. I borrowed a friend's Koni Omega Rapid & 58mm lens once and researched the system at the time. I had a niggling thought after my last post that there was no 65mm lens in the system; sure enough, a quick web search shows that the only thing between the 58mm and 90mm lenses was a 60mm lens. So if that's what you have, my revised calculation is:</p> <ul> <li>60 mm lens on 6x7 format => 74 degrees diagonal field of view ~ 29 mm lens equivalent on 35 mm format [but aspect ratio a bit different]</li> </ul> <p>In that case, if it were me, I'd take the Koni-Omega with the A7R.</p>

<blockquote> <p>I will now set back while the "experts" tell you what to do...........</p> </blockquote> <p>Well Russ, I think the most important thing to do is to answer the original poster's question(s). Accurately and completely. There is a tendency that when somebody asks "I'd like to buy a car. Is a Ford Focus better than a VW Golf?", they get some replies like "Trust me, you don't want a car. A motorbike would be far better. I have a Harley and I love it.".</p> <blockquote> <p>Contemplating a medium format camera for film. 6x6 or 6x7 format, build-in reflective light metering, and if possible auto focus. Any recommendations?</p> </blockquote> <p>6x7 and above: there are no cameras with autofocus.</p> <p>6x6: as Eric stated, the only cameras with autofocus are the Rolleiflex 6008AF and its successor, the Hy6 models 1 & 2. They have sophisticated metering and top-notch lenses too.</p> <p>I know you didn't ask about 645 format - and I don't want to become one of those people persuading you to buy a motorbike instead! - but seeing as the list of options so far is so thin, and not inexpensive, this may be helpful:</p> <p>645: 4 lines of SLRs with autofocus and metering:</p> <ol> <li>Pentax 645 N/NII,</li> <li>Mamiya 645 AF/AFD/AFDII/AFDIII [be careful - the DF/DF+ and XF series are newer but cannot be used with film backs!],</li> <li>Contax 645AF,</li> <li>Hasselblad H1/H2/H2F/H4X/H5X [again, be careful - H-series models ending in D cannot be used with film backs]</li> </ol> <p>Also in 645, 1 line of fixed-lens rangefinders with autofocus and metering: Fuji GA645/GA645W/GA645Zi</p> <p>I think that's everything in the "medium format with autofocus" world. The Pentax, Mamiya, and Fuji options are best for those on a budget. </p>

<blockquote> <p>Trying to figure out if 65mm and 90mm really a big difference, and if the wider film on the gw690 will compensate.</p> </blockquote> <p>You have many subjective factors to weigh up re. the cameras...but we can at least take the technical aspects of the lens coverage as an objective mathematical comparison.</p> <ul> <li>90 mm lens on 6x9 format => 59 degrees diagonal field of view ~ 38 mm lens equivalent on 35 mm format [and same aspect ratio]</li> <li>65 mm lens on 6x7 format => 68 degrees diagonal field of view ~ 32 mm lens equivalent on 35 mm format [but aspect ratio a bit different]</li> </ul> <p>So they're not much different from each other.</p> <p>What's more, your A7R + 35mm lens falls in between them. So whichever film camera you take, it will yield very similar compositions to the digital camera.</p>

<p>I've seen and diagnosed this here a few times before - it happened with one of my own M645s. </p> <p>It is a light leak from the top of the film chamber's door. Replace the foam seals (easy DIY job) and it will be fully cured.</p> <p>The frame experiences the light leak <em>before</em> it gets wound into the film gate to make the exposure. If you see a blue-tinged leak, as here, the camera was under a blue sky at some time before the shot was taken. </p>

<p>Hi Lisa,<br> Sorry to hear of your health problem - hope there are more good days than bad!</p> <blockquote> <p>Bronica is ETRS, and it's definitely a 50mm lens, can can go down to 1.8!</p> </blockquote> <p>If this lens fits the Bronica ETRS, it can only go down to f2.8. There are hardly any medium format lenses which reach f2 or faster - and certainly no 50/1.8 lenses, as that would be a superfast wideangle (but wouldn't that be awesome?!).</p> <p>If it really is an f1.8 lens, it's probably for the 35mm Canon bodies you got.</p>

<p>Very good advice from Michael. Just to correct one minor detail:</p> <blockquote> <p>a card of 40 of them at Cosco for $10. Yep, that's 40 cents each.</p> </blockquote> <p>That's 25 cents each - even better!</p> <p>C:</p> <blockquote> <p>I'd pass on relic meters like the Gossens.<br> The Sekonic L-398M...its only drawback is limited low light sensitivity</p> </blockquote> <p>Which is where the 'relic' Gossen Luna-Pro SBC proves its worth. One of the most sensitive light meters ever produced.</p>

<p>On the winder side of the body, there is a complex series of gears, springs and interlocks. I have a copy of the repair manual which shows this. From your description, at least one of these mechanisms is not engaging properly.</p> <p>The main problem seems to be that the camera is stuck in permanent "shutter release" mode, so as soon as you wind on (film is advanced, shutter is re-cocked) it immediately trips the shutter open again.</p> <p>The solution might be as simple as relubrication (CLA) of the internal mechanisms. The camera is between 30-40 years old and may never have been serviced. How recently was your purchase? - you just say "a while back". If you can still return the camera for refund or repair (at the seller's expense), that would be my advice.</p> <p>The mirror not always returning instantly at the end of each "exposure" sounds like a second problem...but I wonder if this variation in the mirror's behaviour might have another cause - are you perhaps trying the camera at different shutter speeds?</p>

<blockquote> <p>I was looking at the 250mm lens and was wondering. What's the distance it gives me between me and the subject if I wanted to capture about a head-shoulder candid shot? Does this make sense? If this does make sense, what distance can I get from longer lenses with the same end result (head to shoulder shot)?</p> </blockquote> <p>It does make sense. For telephoto lenses (say, your 120mm lens and up), it's a fairly accurate approximation that doubling or trebling the focal length results in doubling or trebling the distance that you stand back from the subject in order to achieve the same framing.</p> <p>So if you get the head to shoulder shot you want from a distance of 10 feet with the 120mm lens, you'll get it from a distance about ~ 20 feet with the 250mm lens and ~ 30 feet with the 350mm lens. (I'm just guesstimating 10 feet as the starting point here).</p>

<blockquote> <p>you'll hate a wlf, reverse n upside down and not as bright or sharp with so much stray light entering it.</p> </blockquote> <p>Only if you don't use the flip-down magnifier, which also keeps out stray light. With the magnifier, the WLF on the M645 is the brightest viewfinder I have ever used on any camera - and also offers the largest, most detailed view of the entire focusing screen. It is the only thing I really miss with my fixed-prism 645AFD body.</p> <p>Also, a WLF never makes the image upside down - the reflex mirror corrects that orientation before the image reaches the focusing screen. But it is true that things appear reversed left-right in a WLF.</p>

<p>The line you see in the viewfinder will have no effect on your focusing. It might irritate you seeing it there, that's all. It's a relatively common defect as these prisms age, and many people just get used to ignoring it.<br> I would not say that the repairing the prism is economical, unless you do it yourself.</p>