Seeking thoughts on optical M10 21mm viewfinders for eyeglass wearers

[astrostl]

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There are a lot of options out there, and I've yet to see a shootout. To pair with the M10 and a 21 SEM, anyone have experiences to relate? Brightness, distortion, accuracy, all of it. Above all else I certainly want to see the whole frame without struggling, though! For reference, I can't see the full built-in framelines for 28mm without looking around.

I already own the Visoflex, and would like to consider something less clunky (physically and requiring live view). Thanks!

Edited October 15, 2018 by astrostl

[Printmaker]

The Leica Bright-line viewfinder M 21 mm is very nice and does not draw down your battery. It is my first choice. Definitely far more expensive than it should be but often available used. Voigtlander and Zeiss also make optical finders. The Zeiss shows less distortion but is a little bit larger.

Of course you could just use live view on the back of the camera but I find that solution useless in bright sunshine.

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[Guest]

The 21-24-28mm Leica finder is pretty good, and thanks to advice received on the Forum I discovered that it accepts the same correction diopters as the M's, ( except for the larger sized M10 diopters ), in my case I use a +2. The diopter makes all the difference, I stupidly struggled with the VF's on both the camera and the 21-24-28 finder before acknowledging that I needed to have the diopters, now all's good. There is some pin-cushion distortion especially at the 21mm setting, but I ignore it..........It's fine.

[ckuwajima]

I have both, a Leica 21mm Brightline Finder and a Voigtländer 21mm. The Voigtländer image is brighter, larger with a better eye relief. Nevertheless I find myself often using the Brightline just because of the looks!

The pictures bellow are with the Voigtländer GV-1 21/28mm finder, which I do not recommend. The 21mm Voigtländer is much better.

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Leica 21mm Viewfinder vs Ricoh GV-1 21/28 Viewfinder by Celso Kuwajima, on Flickr

Leica 21mm Viewfinder vs Ricoh GV-1 21/28 Viewfinder by Celso Kuwajima, on Flickr

Edited October 15, 2018 by ckuwajima

[250swb]

I've got both the 21mm finders that ckuwajima has in the post above and the Voigtlander version is in my opinion better than the Leica. It is much brighter with good contrast and what I see through it seems to equate to the outside world, but the Leica finder is dingy and dull in comparison. The Voigtlander is also a lot cheaper. The question of distortion with 21mm finders isn't really an issue because they are framing tools, not optical equivalents of the particular 21mm lens you are using.

[astrostl]

Appreciate the input, all! Just to be clear: y'all are wearing eyeglasses with these?

[imagereflex]

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I wear glasses, and have tried a variety of finders with the 21SEM.  The best option when wearing glasses is actually the Visoflex, but that only works if you can live with the delay associated with using the camera in LV mode.  In most instances, I'll use the 12008 finder.  I've tried the 12002/SBKOO finder, but found that the contrast and brightness of the 12008 works better with glasses.  I've also tried the variable 21-24-28 finder (12013).  That has the downside of sitting much higher on the camera, being much less accurate (depending upon the angle when looking into the finder), and not providing an appreciably better view when wearing glasses.

Hope this helps.

[ckuwajima]

2 hours ago, astrostl said:

Appreciate the input, all! Just to be clear: y'all are wearing eyeglasses with these?

Yes

[250swb]

Yes, I wear glasses.

[astrostl]

In poking around, I ran into a fair deal ($200) on a Leica 12008 in excellent condition, with case. I value the fact that it is offset a bit to lock in accurate compositions.

Overall, I dig it, and enough to switch to a Thumbie from a Thumbs Up so that I can free up the hotshoe. It looks slick on the camera, and it's very usable with glasses. Biggest rub is in portrait orientation, where it's harder for me to hit the "sweet spot" - viewing it off-angle makes things blurry. Could come down to a matter of practice. Thanks, all!