When shooting quick and dirty, you can zone focus. However, even for handheld shooting, there are alternatives to accessory range finders.
When shooting on a tripod, you can and should use a ground glass back (see #2 below). To help you select a specific model, our complete range finder guide can be found here. When shopping on Ebay, searching for “range finder” will yield better results than “rangefinder,” as the latter describes a camera type as well. Most have an accessible calibration screw that shifts the distance scale. These can also lose their alignment, and it is thus recommended that you calibrate them before use. Sometimes this can be repaired by adding a small piece of colored “party” gel over one of the windows.
#HUGO MEYER LOW LIGHT WINDOWS#
If both windows are clear, there is no way to see the overlapping images, and thus the rangefinder can’t be used properly. Another potential problem is that the coloring can wear off of one of the windows. There are many other brands out there as well. The Widor, Watameter, and BLIK all come ready to mount and work well.
The Ideal has no foot, but the Mercury generic cold shoe foot with lip can be glued to it for on-camera use. The Walz has a removable metal foot that is sometimes lost. The Hugo Meyers use a strange mounting system that almost works on a standard cold shoe, but you’re better off using the Mercury replacement foot for these. Some common models are pictured below, including the BLIK by Lomo, Widor, Walz, Hugo Meyer, Watameter, and Ideal. Most mounted on a standard cold shoe some had proprietary mounts, and some had no mount as all, as they were designed to be used hand held, detached from the camera.
Japanese, Russian, American, and German companies all manufactured accessory rangefinders. Lasers, however, require batteries, and are bulkier than a typical rangefinder.Ĭameras that lacked a reflex viewing system and any built-in rangefinder used to be quite common, and thus many auxiliary rangefinders used to flood the market from the 1930s through the 1970s. These are inexpensive on Ebay, and can be easily mounted to a Mercury cold shoe. This allows for easy and fast street photography, as long as you can adequately judge distance (at distances near the infinity point, this is especially easy).įinally, photographers wanting absolute precision over shorter distances can use a laser distance finder as an alternative or supplement to a range finder. An alternate focus method is zone focusing (whereby the photographer uses the Mercury depth of field guide to choose a working focus range, sets the aperture accordingly, and then shoots subjects within that range without having to worry about focus.
This is a fast and easy way to measure focal distance when you don’t have a reflex viewing system to judge directly.Ī rangefinder is not required for Mercury use, but it is one of the best ways to focus, especially when shooting hand held, and thus comes with the highest possible recommendation. The device has thereby measured the difference between what each window sees, and thus calculated the distance to the target based upon its pre-calibrated settings. The photographer turns the dial until the two images (one from each window) converge perfectly. A dial causes one of the mirrors to converge upon the other variably. Auxiliary Range Finderįor most Mercury users, this will be the most important accessory you purchase.Ī range finder is a relatively simple device that lets light into two small windows (located apart from one another), then uses mirrors to reflect light from both windows onto a single viewfinder. The following is a list of essential accessories for your Mercury camera, including both Mercury Works and 3rd party items.
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