Focusing a rangefinder with diff lenses

ped

ped

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I have an old Braun Paxette camera with a 45mm lens. Focusing is taken care of via the cameras built in viewfinder and separate rangefinder window.

Now - if I put on a 135mm lens, how do i focus? I have to use an external viewfinder to help with framing and so I can 'see' what the lens sees - but this won't work with the rangefinder, presumably. Do I focus with the normal viewfinder window and then frame the shot with the 135mm viewfinder?

Any help would be great

Cheers
ped
 
You would, I assume, have to resort to using the distance scale on the lens - clearly there's no issue with parallax here such as you would get with a wider lens. Having said all that, if the lens was made for this camera type then the lever in the camera itself would still be deflected the correct amount by the rear of the lens moving as you focus, and so would mean the RF image should still be valid for focusing purposes.

Arthur
 
The Rangefinder should still focus as it should, it'll just be the frame line that you will need to use the add on viewer for.

Saying that, I'd check what the range on the lens says and see if it equates to roughly the distance you're looking at before taking the picture, at least until you get used to the lens.

I've been using a Canon 50mm on a Bessa R and I realised 3/4 of the way through a film that the range and focusing were not together, once I corrected it, the rest of the film was hugely better focused.

I've since put a Jupiter 8 on and am running a film through it and so far the focusing seems to be far more correct.
 
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