My lllg's yellow-tinted viewfinder; what to do about it ?

[jimbo035]

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In his reply to the "iiig vs iiif Question" thread  (09/01/2008) 'wizard' wrote that :The finder of my IIIg, also CLAed recently, has that yellow tint you described. To the best of my knowledge, the yellow tint comes from a layer of Canada balsam used to cement two glass elements (prisms) in the finder together. These prisms are apparently needed to project the brightline frames into the main optical path of the finder. In the old days, they used this stuff called Canada balsam to cement optical elements together, and Canada balsam tends to get yellowish over time. When the IIIg was originally made, this yellow tint was probably absent, or at least present to a much lesser degree.

That said, the finder of my IIIg is very clear and quite bright. Due to the yellow tint it may seem a little less bright than that of the IIIf, but I still hugely prefer the IIIg's finder over the IIIf's.

 

During the years of its production I once had a lllg and am sure its viewfinder had no such tint, unlike the very late replacement for it I bought recently - yellow tinted finder (to my surprise and slight disappointment) but very clear and quite bright.    

I am just wondering whether it will worsen, in which case either having it dealt with (assuming there are still repairers around with the necessary skill), or simply learn to live with it (assuming it's nothing to worry about).   

Edited July 10, 2016 by jimbo035

[spydrxx]

Youxin Ye routinely replaces the mirrors in lots of the Barnacks he services, apparently with kudos from owners (I haven't had him replace mine - so I am speaking from the experience of others). We used to use Canada Balsam in the laboratory to cement cover glasses on microscope slides....after years, they all yellowed. Personally, if you use the camera much, I'd have the mirror looked at to ascertain if a replacement would markedly improve its brightness, contrast & clarity. If you don't use it much, I'd probably just take a pass and live with it as is.

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[Michael Geschlecht]

Hello Jim,

 

Do you think that it might be possible that there is an "OKARO" yellow filter screwed onto the front rangefinder or front viewfinder window?

Best Regards,

 

Michael

Edited September 26, 2016 by Michael Geschlecht

[wizard]

Michael, my IIIg certainly hasn't got any OKARO filter mounted on it.

 

Best, 

 

Andy