Who Remembers These?
 

Unfortunately its not working now but it often reminds me of days gone by.

I did use one a centary ago.
Kjeld

I have one in the loft. I will dig it out and take a pic. Bought it in a boot sale years ago as a momento of days gone by.

Don

I think I need a clue. Is it something to do with recording an image on a substrate made from cow bones and silver?

I reckon it an aid to photography rather than a camera itself.

Am I on the right track?

Stephen,

I used to use it with my folding camera that had an adjustable lens. ;)

Don

Hmmm, DOF finder or focus aid?

Can't quite accept the answer :rolleyes: but very close with one of them.

Don

Arr, you're killing me!

I am going down the focus avenue, is it a focal point aid?

Stephen, it is really appropriate that you are posting here.

Next clue, I had to come up with an appropriate one here :) : Nikon made these years ago ..... think about that, and they were about 15ft long and were not used for photography.

Don

Rangefinder.

10/10 .... just had to get my last one in. :D

Perhaps NFB can backtrack to my clue and the 15ft bit, and think of application.

Another clue : very famous in its day. ( 1940's )

Don

Looking for a pic as the semi answer to my clue and I came across this.
http://www.oshipee.com/omami/image/y...seum-big00.jpg

Great bit of model engineering and what a challenge to photograph. Notice the 2 people for a sense of scale.

Don

Your in the right range!

John:)

It saves you having to guess!

John

They used to call them range finders and they were used to tell you the distance of the subject which you then set on the lens. They belonged to the days when most cameras did not have a built in range finder and no focusing screen. Looking through the hole two halves of the image were seen out of line. You turned the dial until the two halves lined up and then read the distance off the dial. Cost in those days about £3.50

That'll be about 3 days of what was my pay then John. Just to put it into perspective petrol was 5shillings and 3pence a gallon ...... about 26p a gallon in new money. :D Not exactly a cheap accessory.

Don

Just worked it out to about £70 in todays money. :eek:

Photography ..... an expensive hobby back then.

Don

Now too!

John

John,

Well done for the image you added. Shows the idea perfectly.

Don

Here is an inside view of a rangefinder, with a sketch to help explain how it works.
Johns picture shows the effect of a split image but is a lot clearer than the image viewed through this one. As can be seen the semi silvered mirror has a yellow tint and that appears in one half of the split image.

With the cover removed it turns out to be very basic.

Don

Hi Don,

Thanks for the inside view. They are, as you say, very basic. They are also very flimsy and suceptible to damage by knocks. I am sure you realise that my illustration was not taken through an actual range finder. The view through a real one can be difficult to see properly, that is, until you get used to it, as I am sure you already know. How lucky we are today to have auto focusing and micro prisms if you are not a fan of auto.

John

They used to make giant rangefinders on battleships to help them with elevation etc needed to hit the enemy. Guess they were somewhat more robust than photographic ones.

I can see a rangefinder is used as an instrument to ascertain distance from it to the subject. I guessed at focus aid, I believe to be correct but what's the difference, if any between rangefinder and focus aid?

Gosh I'm scraping the bottom of the barrel of my memory and knowledge but in essence I don't think there is a difference. One tells you the distance to set the lens at for correct focus and the rangefinder worked on the same principle of bringing two images into one the distance being read off a scale and then entered into the necessary equations with all the other parameters to give bearing and elevation to the guns. The optics were set feet apart to give good trig readings rather than inches so merely a matter of scale. Range finders are probably lasers now as in modern Leica range finding binoculars.

Stephen,
None really. I guess that 'range finder is more specific because it finds the range, whereas a magnifying glass could be used as a focus aid but not as a range finder. The term 'focus aid,' is often used to describe a specially mounted magnifiying mirror used with enlargers during wet printing.

John

John,

We will be showing our age on this thread. I have 2 of what you describe in the loft. :D

Don

Unlike you Don I only have one. That's why my right arm is 3 inches longer than my left arm.

John

I have a Voitlanger Vitessa at home with an F2 lens, unfortunately the iris vanes are a bit damaged. It was my first 35mm camera and I loved the built-in rangefinder. Yes, happy days.:)

Hello ADJH,

In my early encounters with photography I had a Voigtlander Vito B. It didn't have a range finder but it did have a Color Skopar f2.8 50 mm lens which was renowned for the quality of its images.

John

Mine probably had the same lens but as I'm 3500 miles away from it at the moment, I can't confirm this. Suffice to say it turned out some brilliant results.