An M10 that has a viewfinder with 3 magnification levels: wide, standard, telephoto?

[adan]

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@ mjh - I believe you are mistaken in saying the X-Pro1 uses a sliding additional lens to change viewfinder magnification. That would only allow two fields of view, and the Fuji already has three different focal lengths (with more to come, including zoom lenses requiring an "infinite" number of magnifications.)

 

Looking at the enlarged dpreview pix of the camera, I see a regular zooming viewfinder, not much different than that in a Canon G12/G-1X, or the Contax G series.

 

The X-Pro-1 DOES have an sliding viewfinder element - but it is an opaque screen to block the optical view entirely when using the EVF. Just as in the X100.

 

Do you have a source on "sliding in an additional lens in front of the viewfinder"?

 

@ jacques - well, actually, it has been applied to RF cameras, although not as a simple sliding lens. Leica's goggled 35 and 135 lenses DO put "an additional lens in front of the viewfinder" to change the magnification.

 

The problem is, they are not a compact internal sliding lens. They are big, bulky optical units 2 cms deep. A simple sliding lens thin/flat enough to fit inside a camera of rational size would either not offer enough optical power to be worth the effort (who needs to change a 50mm view to a 45mm view?) - or, if powerful enough to be useful, would be full of CA and corner fuzziness. Possibly acceptable to Lomo and Diana users, but not in anything costing €100 or more.

 

I'd also have doubts that sliding front lenses would be able to maintain enough optical precision for focusing with any reliability. A really cool function that requires bi-monthly trips to Solms for realignment (at Solms' expense, for two years of warranty) seems like a practical loser.

[jaques]

thanks for the reply Adan-

 

but MJH was actually correct- Fuji have an internal magnifier that slides into place (and it seems it does only offer two magnification options- not three as I said)- basically wide (with magnifier) and standard- (without) not just the blind sliding screen as in the x100. It seems the change in magnification is not huge...

 

So the standard view through the finder would not be as wide as on an M camera- IE the 50mm frames would fill up more of the space?

 

Here is the info:

 

FUJIFILM X-Pro1 | features - Hybrid Multi Viewfinder | Fujifilm Global

 

I don't understand how the frame lines are going to work across all lenses- but inside the fuji menu there is a lens selection option to manually input virtually any focal length. I don't know if this is for focus, framing or corrections... or a combination.

[adan]

Hah! OK - Sorry, Michael! And thanks, Jacques.

 

So, yes, this could be applied to a manual rangefinder, with the caveat that you'd still need two of the magnifiers (one for each rangefinder window), perfectly matched for optics and movement - and room for both to move around inside the camera.

 

Of course the Fuji framelines are just pixels on a computer screen (the EVF) so THOSE can zoom over a continuous range (35-36-37... and not just 35 - 50 - 90) - or even be redrawn in different formats (1:1 or 16:9, if desired).

 

I'd guess the lens itself is feeding focal length info through the electrical contacts, so getting the lines to match the lens (even with a zoom) is the easy part.

 

It will be interesting to see what range zoom lens Fuji eventually adds, and how they handle the magnifier and framelines if a lens zooms across the boundary between 18mm and 35mm. It would be disconcerting to have the optical view "jump" in the middle of zooming. So Fuji may just disable the magnifier when a zoom is mounted, and simply vary the size of the frameline box to a greater degree.

 

Interesting that Fuji switched from the EVF screen being beside the optical finder (X100) to being below the optical finder (XP1).

[jaques]

Hah! OK - Sorry, Michael! And thanks, Jacques.

 

Of course the Fuji framelines are just pixels on a computer screen (the EVF) so THOSE can zoom over a continuous range (35-36-37... and not just 35 - 50 - 90) - or even be redrawn in different formats (1:1 or 16:9, if desired).

 

I'd guess the lens itself is feeding focal length info through the electrical contacts, so getting the lines to match the lens (even with a zoom) is the easy part.

 

It will be interesting to see what range zoom lens Fuji eventually adds, and how they handle the magnifier and framelines if a lens zooms across the boundary between 18mm and 35mm. It would be disconcerting to have the optical view "jump" in the middle of zooming. So Fuji may just disable the magnifier when a zoom is mounted, and simply vary the size of the frameline box to a greater degree.

 

Interesting that Fuji switched from the EVF screen being beside the optical finder (X100) to being below the optical finder (XP1).

 

The magnifier is only in play when wide lenses are on board. The dedicated X lenses will bring up the appropriate frames automatically- but for third party lenses it looks like you can manually select any focal length. So it should correct frames with the 40mm summicron!