Does anyone know of a hotshoe mounted viewfinder with close to a 50mm perspective? I know that Cosina makes some, but I'm looking for a cheap solution. Thanks for any help.

Jmal

Cosina/Voigtlander IS the inexpensive solution when compared to Zeiss and Leica.

Buy used from eBay if you are patient enough to wait for your price.

yeah, tons of used viewfinders on eBay. I bought a 28mm - 135mm adjustable shoe mount finder on there for pretty cheap, maybe about $40 if I remember correctly.

Pardon the ignorance, but do the CV viewfinders have a rangefinder mechanism or are they simply a viewing glass with frame lines?

Jmal

No shoe mount viewfinders have a rangefinder mechanism.

There are shoe mount rangefinders, but they are not coupled to the lens, and they don't tell you where the framelines are.

I made one using the viewfinder from a camera ..a kodak pony. Dremel cutting, sanding, spray paint later and it looks pretty decent. I use it for a handheld large format viewing device/framer. Reverse it and you get about 180-200mm

Could also use lenses from cheaper turret cine cameras and crop front lens but not as good optically

The viewfinder has no effect whatsoever on perspective. That is determined soley by the position of the lens in space relative to 2 or more points seperated by depth.

I believe that you are looking for an angle of view for using with a 50mm lens. Ebay would be a good place to look. There are a number of Russian choices that might please you very much. Russian items are typically inexpensive. In ordering from Russia or the Ukarine be very careful of shipping costs so that your savings do not disappear.

Claire--yes, I'm looking for something that comes close to the angle of view of a 50mm lens to use with a pinhole body cap. Forgive the misuse of the language. I hate ebay, but I give it a look as I'm not eager to spend $130 on a CV finder.

Jmal

haven't done pinholes in a very long time, but don't they generally give a wider field than a standard 50mm lens?

I'll second Claire's suggestion to look for a Russian viewfinder. I've got one, and I see auctions for two just like it on eBay now, plus a few in eBay stores -- search on "(fed,zorki) viewfinder" (http://search.ebay.com/search/search.dll?sofocus=bs&sbrftog=1&dfsp=32&from=R40&satitle=(fed%2Czorki)+viewfinder). Unfortunately, they (and many other Russian/FSU photo products) have gone up in price over the past couple of years. Still, there are a couple of auctions that should go for $40 or less, shipped, assuming there aren't many bids on them. (Check the sellers' other items; maybe you'll stumble across something else you'd like, which may help bring the per-item shipping costs down, albeit at higher total cost.) These viewfinders are actually multi-format, with five focal lengths ranging from 28mm to 135mm, and one of these is 50mm. I use one with my FED 5 camera.

Have you had a look for a KMZ turret finder (http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/UNIVERSAL-TURRET-VIEW-FINDER-FED-ZORKI-CAMERA-BOX_W0QQitemZ140250638670QQcmdZViewItem?hash=item1 40250638670&_trksid=p3286.m63.l1177)?

The Soviet turret viewfinder that is a copy of the Zeiss turret viewfinder seems to be rising in price these days.

There are viewfinders from the 1950s and 1960s made in Japan that seem to be reasonably priced.

And I see a couple of Soviet 5cm viewfinders on eBay with "Buy It Now" prices of $30. You also have to factor in shipping costs, but they shouldn't be high, because the weight should be low.

The focal length equivalent of a pinhole is the distance between the pinhole and the film, regardless of the size of the pinhole, so if the pinhole is 50mm from the film, it will see the same as a 50mm lens. As it happens, if you use a pinhole body cap on a 35mm SLR, the pinhole will generally be around 45mm from the film, so a 50mm finder should be just right.

One that I like is the Voigtlander Kontur finder. You can use one for 35mm or 6x9--the field of view is the same. It's not a viewfinder that you look through with one eye. With one eye, you look through the finder and you see the frameline. The other eye stays open to see the scene. Your brain puts them together, so you see the frameline suspended in space with no optical interference. They show up on eBay sometimes, or try Juergen Kreckel (certo6). He may have one.

Very interesting - thanks for clearing that up. FWIW my viewfinder is a T.O.C. Universal Finder, made in Japan. Seems like a good little finder, if you can find one cheap enough.