[Leica] Mystery Telesar viewfinder

[pklein at 2alpha.net (Peter Klein)]

Thanks, Karen.  That could very well be.  It doesn't explain why the 
proportions are a bit "off," but with these third-party accessories, who knows?

Anyway, it's got decent eye relief, and the outer frame is close enough to 
35mm.  It shows a little less the actual view, which is better than a 
little more!  I think I'll just put it in my bag for use when I'm not 
wearing my contacts and need to use a 35mm lens with glasses.

Here's a couple of quick-'n-dirty digishots for Sonny and others who might 
be curious.  It looks kind of nice on a black "M," doesn't it?

http://www2.2alpha.com/~pklein/temp/TelesarVF4.jpg

Detail shots:

http://www2.2alpha.com/~pklein/temp/TelesarVF1.jpg
http://www2.2alpha.com/~pklein/temp/TelesarVF2.jpg
http://www2.2alpha.com/~pklein/temp/TelesarVF3.jpg

Incidentally, I picked the VF up hoping to have a 50mm finder for my Zorki 
4, which is impossible with glasses.  So it won't work for that, but will 
for something equally useful.  Not bad for 10 dollars.  I also acquired, 
for similar money, a near-mint Industar-61 L/D, which is essentially a 
Russian Tessar with Lanthanum glass--kind of a poor man's red-scale 
Elmar.  Focuses spot-on at infinity with the Zorki RF, and like my J-8, a 
bit short on the Leicas.  Can't wait to try it.

And is it my imagination, or is your Yashica with lens adapter shaped 
suspiciously like a Digilux 2?  Those electronic Yashicas were fine-looking 
gadgets. :-)

--Peter Klein
Seattle, WA

At 08:48 AM 5/9/04 -0700, I wrote:
> >Today I was rummaging about in the "used" bins of a local camera
> >store, and came upon a near-mint shoe-mount brightline viewfinder.
> >It's a short cylinder, shaped very much like the classic Leica 50mm
> >viewfinder.  It's black, with the brand name "TELESAR" is inscribed
> >in silver upper-case letters on the top of the finder, and a thin
> >silver line runs around the cylinder just above the tops of the
> >letters.
> >
> >The finder has two sets of yellow bright lines, each with close-up
> >marks just below the top.  The front of the finder also reflects a
> >yellow color.  The view is a bit reduced, and seems similar to my
> >.72x "M" viewfinders.  The build quality seems very high.

Karen Nakamura wrote:

>Sounds almost exactly like the auxiliary finder for my Yashica GSN cameras.
>http://www.photoethnography.com/ClassicCameras/YashicaElectro35GSN.html
>With the wide adapter, the effective focal length is 37.7mm and the
>tele is 58.4mm.