Sportsfinder for DSLR
rpcrowe
Registered Users Posts: 733 Major grins
The theory behind the sportsfinder is simple. It is a relatively simple wire or optical finder which will allow the photographer to view the subject with both eyes open.
I was recently photographing a dog agility trial using a 300mm prime lens. While, this lens provided great separation of the dogs from the background, it was difficult to frame these enormously fast animals as they jumped barriers and emerged from various obstacles.
After I returned home, I remembered an old sportsfinder that the Topcon Company provided for their 35mm single lens reflex film cameras. I had one of these rare oddities in my junk bin (My wife says that I never throw anything away. I tell her that today's junk is tomorrow's treasure). Although this Topcon sportsfinder is optimized for a 100mm lens on a 24x36mm format camera, it still is fairly accurate to use with any focal length lens.
Of course, you cannot accurately predict the framing of the subject, but can get a good idea where the subject is located in your frame. It is also effective to use when shooting with long focal length lenses against a bland background like the sky. You can center your subject in the sportsfinder and pick up that image using the camera's viewfinder.
I would like an updated version of this sportsfinder that would include an optical finder that can be used with both eyes open and which would have the frame outlined for various focal length lenses.
I was recently photographing a dog agility trial using a 300mm prime lens. While, this lens provided great separation of the dogs from the background, it was difficult to frame these enormously fast animals as they jumped barriers and emerged from various obstacles.
After I returned home, I remembered an old sportsfinder that the Topcon Company provided for their 35mm single lens reflex film cameras. I had one of these rare oddities in my junk bin (My wife says that I never throw anything away. I tell her that today's junk is tomorrow's treasure). Although this Topcon sportsfinder is optimized for a 100mm lens on a 24x36mm format camera, it still is fairly accurate to use with any focal length lens.
Of course, you cannot accurately predict the framing of the subject, but can get a good idea where the subject is located in your frame. It is also effective to use when shooting with long focal length lenses against a bland background like the sky. You can center your subject in the sportsfinder and pick up that image using the camera's viewfinder.
I would like an updated version of this sportsfinder that would include an optical finder that can be used with both eyes open and which would have the frame outlined for various focal length lenses.
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I too would like to see these simple finders brought back and improved. Thanks for the information and images.
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This is an example of a sportsfinder with multi focal length framing lines which was distributed for Hasselblad cameras... Something like this should be relatively simple to fabricate by a handy person.
Also, I read a description of the use of an ancient Leica sportsfinder which is very much like my Topcon finder. The adjustment for the focal length framing was by the distance from your eye that you viewed the finder. Obviously with the eye closest to the finder, it would show the widest framing and with the eye farther from the finder, the framing would be narrower. They described it as, eye right up to finder, eye at nose length from the finder and so on....
That is something that I could try with my 40D and live view. Could possibly get me somewhere near the ballpark.