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DIY: Fix a Dim Rangefinder Patch With a Gel

Chris Gampat
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11/04/2014
1 Min read

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All photos by Jason Cheung. Used with permission.

If you’re using an older analog camera of some sort or just have a dim rangefinder in one of your cameras, photographer Jason Cheung created a workaround that seems pretty nifty. It involves a bit of thinking in a different way–while most photographers will instead try to brighten the focusing patch, not many think about dimming the rest of the viewfinder to make the patch stand out more. But that’s what Jason did–and he did it just enough for it to still be usable.

More after the jump.

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According to Jason, what you need to do is cut a piece of a photography gel about the same size as the rangefinder viewing screen and place it over said screen. Mr. Cheung tells us that there doesn’t seem to be any danger of it falling into the camera, but that if someone is using a thinner material they should check to see if it slides around too much, and if so, they should add a very tiny bit of rubber cement under the frame, not the viewfinder glass!.

And the results?

Before
Before
after
after
camera diy gel hack rangefinder
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Chris Gampat is the Editor in Chief, Founder, and Publisher of the Phoblographer. He provides oversight to all of the daily tasks, including editorial, administrative, and advertising work. Chris's editorial work includes not only editing and scheduling articles but also writing them himself. He's the author of various product guides, educational pieces, product reviews, and interviews with photographers. He's fascinated by how photographers create, considering the fact that he's legally blind./ HIGHLIGHTS: Chris used to work in Men's lifestyle and tech. He's a veteran technology writer, editor, and reviewer with more than 15 years experience. He's also a Photographer that has had his share of bylines and viral projects like "Secret Order of the Slice." PAST BYLINES: Gear Patrol, PC Mag, Geek.com, Digital Photo Pro, Resource Magazine, Yahoo! News, Yahoo! Finance, IGN, PDN, and others. EXPERIENCE: Chris Gampat began working in tech and art journalism both in 2008. He started at PCMag, Magnum Photos, and Geek.com. He founded the Phoblographer in 2009 after working at places like PDN and Photography Bay. He left his day job as the Social Media Content Developer at B&H Photo in the early 2010s. Since then, he's evolved as a publisher using AI ethically, coming up with ethical ways to bring in affiliate income, and preaching the word of diversity in the photo industry. His background and work has spread to non-profits like American Photographic Arts where he's done work to get photographers various benefits. His skills are in SEO, app development, content planning, ethics management, photography, Wordpress, and other things. EDUCATION: Chris graduated Magna Cum Laude from Adelphi University with a degree in Communications in Journalism in 2009. Since then, he's learned and adapted to various things in the fields of social media, SEO, app development, e-commerce development, HTML, etc. FAVORITE SUBJECT TO PHOTOGRAPH: Chris enjoys creating conceptual work that makes people stare at his photos. But he doesn't get to do much of this because of the high demand of photography content. / BEST PHOTOGRAPHY TIP: Don't do it in post-production when you can do it in-camera.