Give life a frame, and then turn the frame into life. I like to see the world with a viewfinder. Sometimes this frame is in my heart, sometimes it is on top of the camera.

For those who like to shoot blindly, an external viewfinder is also necessary. ah? Isn’t this a contradiction? In the era before photography, “framing” has already served painting. Before the invention of the camera, there was an external viewfinder, and it has a longer history than the camera. The viewfinder adds a boundary to your field of view. With this boundary, you have choices and a field of view that belongs to you.

Hunting and possession are human instincts, and viewing through a viewfinder is an extension of this instinct. We can always discover different worlds through the viewfinder, and the world outside the viewfinder is always full of temptation.

The Leica external viewfinder is a reverse Galileo structure, consisting of 5 lenses in 4 groups. The wire frame is particularly bright, with light sourced from internal reflective condenser lenses. Please pay attention when using it, the distance between your eyes and the viewfinder is 8mm, not completely covering your eyes.

I like to carry one of these early Leica SBLOO 35mm viewfinders. In the early days of Leica, each focal length viewfinder had its own name, rather than the common product number now. For example, 50mm is called SBOOI, 35mm is called SBLOO, 28mm is called SLOOZ, 21mm is called SBKOO, 90mm is called SGVOO, and 135mm is called SHOOC.