Viewfinders for 21's...what's the bottom line?

[Matlock]

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I found the frankenfinder useless. Wanted to love it. But constant crookedness. The ZI is extremely reliable and quick to establish your horizon.

 

I find the  frankenfinder great, but then we are all different. How do you define "crookedness"?

[Luke_Miller]

The frakenfinder has a lot of barrel distortion.  Perhaps that could be described as "crookedness".  Since the framelines experience the same distortion it does not affect the accuracy of framing.  I can see that it could be distracting to some, but it works fine for me.

[jdlaing]

Me too.

[menos I M6]

I find it curious that there appears so little unanimity about finders. One would imagine that there'd be a clearer winner. Guess it's an item whose ergonomics and precision is a matter of personal appeal.

It is exactly the very same as with lenses.

Sure there is not such a vast selection of different finders as with lenses, but as with lenses, the finished product "optical accessory viewfinder" is a product of engineering as a compromise.

It comes in all shapes, sizes, functions, materials, finishes and prices as every one of them places a different main priority in design spec to the end product.

 

I think this is fantastic as it allows us human individuals to choose the very one that suits our priorities the best.

 

It also is a reason why - as with lenses - one cannot have enough finders ;-)

 

I myself love the precision and practicality of the Frankenfinder, yet I do value the compactness and wonderful build quality and optical perfection of Leica's (expensive) modern metal finders and yet I still keep some oddball finders around as sometimes they simply are more comfortable to use (see the Konica 21-35 finder or the Carl Zeiss 16mm finder with internal bubble for the 16/8 Hologon).

 

Finders are great!

 

The frakenfinder has a lot of barrel distortion.  Perhaps that could be described as "crookedness".  Since the framelines experience the same distortion it does not affect the accuracy of framing.  I can see that it could be distracting to some, but it works fine for me.

 

 

One of the compromises Leica made in the design of the Universal Wide-angle Finder is that it displays a wide range of focal lengths all of them within a Windows where at any focal length sufficient space around the framing is available for composition (the major feature of our beloved rangefinder cameras) and where each focal length's frame will be displayed with best possible precision.

The price to pay is a moderate amount of barrel distortion.

 

I find finders as Voigtländer's plastic finders having a lot severe barrel distortion and unfortunately no means of leveling these easily with the lack of an internal level.

 

One also has to salute the ingenuity of Leica's engineers as to provide both brightly lit frame lines and a lit bubble level in the same finder and the ability of zooming and focussing the optics - it's quite a piece of engineering we have here.