Offset frame on viewfinder on rex 1

[Bryce Lansing]

I'm shooting a short film in about a month on my Bolex, I did a camera test, and the results were pretty good other than a few soft shots open past f2.8 (I'm using a Nikon to C-mount adapter and Nikon lenses).

 

I'm a little worried because the frame that shows up on my viewfinder is off center and cut off a little bit. Its not really a problem because I'm gonna crop to 16x9 anyway, but I wanted to know if this was normal, or if something like this may be a sign of further issues in the viewfinder that may throw off my focus.

 

I don't have money to get it checked before the shoot, so I hope everything will be fine. It looks kind of like this:

 

[Chris Millar]

Could be a few things ...

 

the mask could be off, which isn't good - or any of the lens or periscope prisms in the viewfinder optical path could be off too, but assuming you can focus on the GG and mask frame then you wont have focus or framing issues... Unless that is you have both problems ;)

 

Try this:

 

Point a flashlight down the finder eyepiece (tape it on there) - bright LED types work well - now reveal the prism and at the same time open the shutter to reveal the gate... Sit far back from the unit and peer into the gate area, you should see a masked GG 'ghost' image floating above it. There are some parallax issues but if it is grossly out of reference then it should be apparent - the further you are away the less the parallax error, but of course the smaller the thing you are looking at...

 

Hope I'm making sense :D

[Bryce Lansing]

Could be a few things ...

 

the mask could be off, which isn't good - or any of the lens or periscope prisms in the viewfinder optical path could be off too, but assuming you can focus on the GG and mask frame then you wont have focus or framing issues... Unless that is you have both problems ;)

 

Try this:

 

Point a flashlight down the finder eyepiece (tape it on there) - bright LED types work well - now reveal the prism and at the same time open the shutter to reveal the gate... Sit far back from the unit and peer into the gate area, you should see a masked GG 'ghost' image floating above it. There are some parallax issues but if it is grossly out of reference then it should be apparent - the further you are away the less the parallax error, but of course the smaller the thing you are looking at...

 

Hope I'm making sense :D

 

 

Thanks for the tips Chris! I'll try the flashlight trick