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George Nedleman
17-Jan-2000, 13:48
I bought 2 pair of 2.75Diop. glasses at a flea mkt. for $10. Then popped the lenses out of one and Siliconed them on top of the mounted pair. Now I can look at my G.G. from 5" and get the whole 6x7 image. Much better than 14" out with my 2.75 reading glasses. It must be great to have "young" eyes aga in.

lee nadel
18-Jan-2000, 17:22
hi george' i also don't have young eyes anymore i use 2 pwer reading glasses from the drug store $22 i can see the gg very well on 4x5 i'm also using longer lenses when i was younger i always shot very wide ? i've been using the view camera for 228 yrs for commercial and fine art now finally i have seperated my cameras into my needs see ya!

Geoff Edwards
25-Jul-2006, 14:15
Hi George, I'm trying out a focussing hood from an old Mamiya RB67

darr
25-Jul-2006, 14:36
I am not trying to hijack this thread, but this question is regarding "focusing aids". I wear glasses now and when I wear contacts I cannot focus any camera I have very well. :confused: Any guesses/reasoning here? I'd love to hear from anyone on this.

Before anyone may ask: No, I am not blind with the contacts on, I actually see better close-up with contacts than with glasses and I do get annual eye check-ups. :)

Jeffrey Sipress
25-Jul-2006, 15:42
I use an Optivisor with the #10 lensplate, which is a 3.6x power. Now I have both hands free to work the camera as I'm analyzing the GG. And I use both eyes. No squinting through a loupe that you have to hold under the hood. Besides, I use one of those elastic silvery head bags. Try getting your hand in there!

Ben Hopson
25-Jul-2006, 17:05
Jeffrey, I looked at the Optivisor on line and it says it is for viewing objects at a distance of four inches. How do you use it when viewing the GG? Do you have to try and keep it about four inches from the GG? It looks interesting and I also use one of the silver bags.

Capocheny
25-Jul-2006, 17:45
LOL.... Just buy a 20x24 camera! The ground glass should be large enough to see from a distance! :)

Darr,

Are your lenses bifocals? I wear bifocals glasses and can see the gg from about 8" away. When I switch to contacts... I have to back up about double that distance.

It sucks to be getting older and losing one's eyesight!

Life! :)

Cheers

darr
25-Jul-2006, 18:01
LOL.... Just buy a 20x24 camera! The ground glass should be large enough to see from a distance! :)

Darr,

Are your lenses bifocals? I wear bifocals glasses and can see the gg from about 8" away. When I switch to contacts... I have to back up about double that distance.

It sucks to be getting older and losing one's eyesight!

Life! :)

Cheers

Capocheny: Yes, I am now in bifocals and what a pain at times! I just wonder why we do not experience the same dilemma with glasses. Any Optometrists/Ophthalmologists out there want to chime in?

resummerfield
25-Jul-2006, 18:26
.....I looked at the Optivisor on line and it says it is for viewing objects at a distance of four inches. How do you use it when viewing the GG? Do you have to try and keep it about four inches from the GG? .....I also use the Optivisor, with the #5 lens and the supplemental magnifier. I had throught about the #10 (and I have that lens), but with the supplemental magnifier I have 2 options.... viewing most of the image or just a small portion.

Capocheny
25-Jul-2006, 18:53
Capocheny: Yes, I am now in bifocals and what a pain at times! I just wonder why we do not experience the same dilemma with glasses. Any Optometrists/Ophthalmologists out there want to chime in?

Hi Darr,

My opthalmologist told me to get a pair of regular glasses for distance viewing AND a pair of contacts strictly for viewing the ground glass.

I've thought about going that route but... the cost of my lenses aren't cheap.

Who knows? If I get fed up enough... I may just go this route and see what happens!


Does anyone have the website for the Optivisor on hand? Otherwise, I'll google it. It sounds like a good idea rather than spending all that money for a "restrictive" use pair of contacts. :)

Cheers

Ed Richards
25-Jul-2006, 19:25
Just Googled Optivisor - I think it exceeds my dork threshold. Bad enough to be using a view camera without looking like a Martian while you do it. I have some cheap, strong reading glasses I keep in the camera bag, and I do critical focusing with an old 7x Calumet loupe. Works fine, except for getting the lanyards tangled around my neck.

Capocheny
25-Jul-2006, 19:59
Just Googled Optivisor - I think it exceeds my dork threshold. Bad enough to be using a view camera without looking like a Martian while you do it.

Hi Ed,

Just googled it too... :)

Yikes!

LOL... Another reason for having a BIG darkcloth? :)

Cheers

Ole Tjugen
26-Jul-2006, 00:28
I'm fortunate to be myopic - I take my glasses off to see the groundglass with nose almost touching. Of course I can't see anything else without my glasses...

phaedrus
26-Jul-2006, 05:18
Capocheny: Yes, I am now in bifocals and what a pain at times! I just wonder why we do not experience the same dilemma with glasses. Any Optometrists/Ophthalmologists out there want to chime in?

At your service, Darr and Capocheny ...
Maybe a little explanation is in order. You are getting presbyopic, which is another way of saying that your eyes are losing their ability to focus on near objects. Bifocals are one way of correcting this with glasses, wherein the lower part of the glass, the little ground-in window, provides plus strength that your eyes can't exert any longer. To check focus on the ground glass, you'd have to look through this part of your bifocals, which CAN be a pain in the neck, literally. BTW, this applies even if you use a loupe. Formerly, you had glasses that corrected for far objects and accommodated your eyes to see near ones, but these glasses are not of much use under the dark cloth now. Neither are contact lenses, because they also correct for far. When I tried to fit so-called multifocal contact lenses to patients of mine, I've never met with much success or enthusiasm. They seem to not work so well.

HTH!
Christoph

darr
26-Jul-2006, 05:43
At your service, Darr and Capocheny ...
Maybe a little explanation is in order. You are getting presbyopic, which is another way of saying that your eyes are losing their ability to focus on near objects. Bifocals are one way of correcting this with glasses, wherein the lower part of the glass, the little ground-in window, provides plus strength that your eyes can't exert any longer. To check focus on the ground glass, you'd have to look through this part of your bifocals, which CAN be a pain in the neck, literally. BTW, this applies even if you use a loupe. Formerly, you had glasses that corrected for far objects and accommodated your eyes to see near ones, but these glasses are not of much use under the dark cloth now. Neither are contact lenses, because they also correct for far. When I tried to fit so-called multifocal contact lenses to patients of mine, I've never met with much success or enthusiasm. They seem to not work so well.

HTH!
Christoph

Christoph -

Thank you for your very understandable explanation. My contacts are 'multfocal' and my doctor was surprised that I can read better with them than my glasses, but the distance is not so good. When I questioned him about any particular reason why I would have trouble focusing through a lens with the contacts on, he said it was probably due to the 'multifocal' lens. He also told me that more than 90% of his patients cannot wear multifocals either. I guess I am lucky here since I spend a lot of my free time reading and I can actually read the best with the contacts on, just do not ask me to drive!

Kind Regards,

Leonard Evens
26-Jul-2006, 07:18
One of the advantages of being highly myopic is that you can put your eye(s) very close to the gg without any glasses. After cataract surgery, my far vision is close to 20/20, without glasses, but of course I need glasses for near vision. I managed to talk my opthamologist into giving me a prescription for +5 diopter reading glasses to be used with my view camera. That allows me to get about 7 inches from the gg. Ideally I would like to be able to get about 6 inches from the gg, because the point of view would correpsond to viewing an 8 x 10 print at 12 inches, but she objected in anything stronger because of potential problems with binocular vision.

Still, I do pretty well with these glasses. I seldom need to use a loupe. I choose a near point and a far point and focus about halfway in between, although I may vary that depending on the scene and what seems most important to get in good focus. Whenever you view the gg, your eyes have an effective circle of confusion, the size of which depends on how close you are to the gg. At about 6 inches, it should be comparable to the coc you use for depth of field calculations. Since the deph of focus (distinguished from depth of field) is proportional to the coc diameter, and since you can't really distinguish one position from another within that range, there is a limit on how precisely you can focus. If you use a loupe, you reduce your effective viewing coc, which lets you focus more precisely. The interesting thing is that I appear to do very well with my method, despite the fact that my focusing error should be at best something like half a mm (with a relative aperture of f/5.6) and may be much larger. I think this is because I've developed several compensating mechanisms. Thus when I focus on the near and far points I approach them from opposite directions, which means I tend to overshoot about the same amount. The errors cancel when taking the midpoint. I may also focus several times on each and end up using an average position and that tends to reduce focusing errors even more. And of course stopping down a stop or two more than absolutely necessary will compensate for small focusing errors. On some occasions, none of this works and I need to use the higher magnification a loupe provides. This is particularly true with wide angle lens far from the center of the field.

David Karp
26-Jul-2006, 07:27
I am pretty nearsighted, and now need reading glasses, so I wear progressives. My eye Dr. gave me a prescription for progressive glasses that has the far vision portion at the very top of the lens, and progresses to close distance at the middle of the lens, with an extra close up portion at the bottom. This is much more comfortable than trying to focus or look at the GG using the very bottom of your eyeglasses. I carry them in my backpack, and just pop them on when I start photographing. Then I leave them on until I am done with my photography. It took a little bit of getting used to looking through the top of the lens for most normal vision, but it is much easier to use these glasses under the dark cloth than my standard glasses. To save money, I used an old frame. I am happy with this solution, at least so far. I used to have to take my glasses off to look at the overall composition, and put them back on to use the loupe. Well, since composition and focusing is often an iterative process, this was a real pain. This new solution seems to work very nicely.

If you want to try this, and want to make sure that the prescription is right, bring your camera, dark cloth, a lens, and your tripod to the eye Dr. and show the Dr. how you work. That way he or she can see how far you like to be from the GG when looking at the whole scene. That will help make sure that this portion of the prescription is placed close to the center of your lenses. It would probably be a good idea to warn the Dr. that you are doing this so that they can account for the extra time in scheduling their appointments.

Elsewhere on this forum, I remember that we had a discussion about glasses that plumbers use, with the close distance on the top, and the far distance on the bottom. It might be worth searching the forum for that one if you are interested. I discussed that with my Dr., but we came up with the above idea instead.

bobc
26-Jul-2006, 16:42
I also went the route of having my opthamologist (sp?) create a pair of glasses for looking at the gg. I can't remember now (Another by-product of advancing years) but I think I had them created with 4X or 6X; the equivalent of a loupe. Similar to Leonard, they are set up to be a certain distance away from the gg. It beats having to peer thru a loupe and frees up a hand. Expensive but I love them.

If you go this route, be aware that because of the magnification, the glasses have to be made using round-ish lenses (according to my opthamologist). So, it's a bit harder to look over the top of them. Another criteria is to pick a frame where the lenses aren't too far apart since one tends to cross their eyes a bit when looking at the gg up close. If the lenses are too far apart, you end up looking thru the edges of the lens which have less light/more distortion.

And, don't be standing on the edge of a cliff when you come out from under the dark cloth with the glasses still on :)

David Karp
26-Jul-2006, 16:51
Bob,

That is interesting. I never considered having a pair of glasses made that would substitute for a loupe. Mine are more general purpose. I still have to use a loupe for critical focusing. I don't mind that, so long as I don't have to work with three systems - eyes alone, eyes and glasses, and eyes, glasses and loupe.

phil sweeney
27-Jul-2006, 03:22
For 8 x 10 and larger I use 3.25 pharmacy glasses (no loupe). My eye doctor worked with me on this. He decided the 3.25s would work fine as long as I did not have any problems with convergence. I do not. If I did he said we could make a similiar set of glasses helping with the convergence.

For 4 x 5 I have to use a loupe also.

Alan Rabe
30-Jul-2006, 08:56
I have pretty much the same problem as stated by others. Getting long in the tooth and eyes getting progressively weaker. I tried have special glasses but they would only work for a while and I had to get a stronger pair. Got to be a little expensive. So I started using regular reading glasses and to supplement them tried various loupes but found them to a pain to use and they only covered a small area. I started to look at various clip on magnifiers. All worked fairly well but were cheaply made and would either flop around in the down position or wouldn't stay up. Then one day from a google search I found the perfect pair. They stay in position wether up or down and fit quit nicely on my glasses. They are flat black and come in 2x, 2.5x, and 3x powers. And best of all they cost only $9.99. I found these jewels at of all places Cabelas.com, yeah the hunting supply company, go figure. The Cabelas part number is IG-711125. So give them a try, and if they aren't quite what you need, your only out 10 bucks.:cool:

Jeffrey Sipress
30-Jul-2006, 14:35
Ben, four inches is about the same distance you might be from the glass using a loupe of similar power. When I need to see the whole image, I just flip it up for composing, and then move it down for focussing. All while I'm under the hood. I don't worry about the geek factor. The View camera fills that need already!

Leonard Metcalf
3-Aug-2006, 04:43
A timely post for me, having just noticed this change, which was confirmed by optician. Thanks for the tips.

Len

clay harmon
3-Aug-2006, 04:54
Fly fisherman have been dealing with presbyopia for some time. So they have neat gadgets to help:

http://tinyurl.com/zsvq6

Sal Santamaura
3-Aug-2006, 10:00
Hi George, I'm trying out a focussing hood from an old Mamiya RB67This has been an interesting thread revival, and I hate to bring anyone's spirits down, but note that George Nedleman died on February 15, 2004. Although it seems the moderators at whatever site he used (I think photo.net) deleted his thread, George posted in late 2003 that he was in the final stages of a terminal illness and asked for ideas on the best way to dispose of his darkroom equipment. A number of replies suggested donating it to schools in the general area of Cambria, California, where George lived.


I'm fortunate to be myopic - I take my glasses off to see the groundglass with nose almost touching. Of course I can't see anything else without my glasses...Same here -- 6 diopters myopic in both eyes with minimal astigmatism. Peering over the top of my eyeglass frames is like looking through a 3x magnifier. I don't remove them completely to avoid tripping over something and falling down ravines!

naturephoto1
5-Aug-2006, 10:44
I am quite near sighted and have been in the position to get bifocals for some time. I have resisted and just use glasses. As others have suggested, I work under the dark cloth without my glasses and position myself for the composition. Because I print many of my transparencies very large with a Chromira or LightJet printer, I need a lupe to confirm focus. For some time I used to use a 7X Wista Hood Lupe with the GG and Fesnel lens on my Linhof Technikardan 45S. Recently, I replaced the Linhof GG with a Satin Snow Ground Glass and have run some tests on a number of Lupes from 4X to 8X. After testing with the Satin Snow GG with and without the Fresnel Lens, I have found for focus confirmation in most instances I will use either a 4X Horizon Lupe (which proved exceptional as a GG Lupe) or my 7X Wista Hood Lupe. For certain situations, or if weight is of primary concern, or to supplement the Horizon Lupe, I may also use my Schneider 8X Lupe.

Rich

Al Seyle
5-Aug-2006, 12:09
...or for wealthy dorkiness:

http://www.miami-med.com/heine_binocular_loupe.htm

...on second thought, maybe they work really well.

Paul Coppin
6-Aug-2006, 08:07
I gave up using glasses under the cloth - or rather, I hang a pair of half-frame reading glasses around my neck to assist the big picture for composing, but I use a Calumet focusing loupe on the GG when its time to get serious.

Rob Vinnedge
10-Aug-2006, 11:58
Al,

I love your contribution. Those gadgets are absolutely hilarious.

Ken Schroeder
10-Aug-2006, 12:32
I have the same frustrations already well noted. I have used a 7x Calumet loupe for years. I also have a 4x Schneider loupe. I tried removing the skirt from the Schneider loupe. I found that using it at a distance of about half the skirt length I was able to see clearly with just my eye. This was much better than looking through my glasses and the loupe. One of my projects is to find another set of skirts for the Schneider loupe and cut them in to half length.

Bob McCarthy
10-Aug-2006, 13:22
In my youth, I wore glasses for distance and was able to see close (GG) by removing my specs (nearsighted) Now after Lazik my distance vision is super (even after 8 years), but I need 2.5+ diopters to see the ground glass.

I recently acquired a viewer for the back of the old technika.

I can see, I can see. Why these aren't more popular I don't know. Other than a little bulk to carry, the weight and fuss is way way (especially fuss) less. The only time I pop on the reading glasses now, is to "read".

Bob

Leonard Evens
10-Aug-2006, 13:50
I am a bit puzzled by those people who are past a certain age and say they don't use bifocals. Forget about looking at the gg. Unless you are nearsighted, you would need bifocals to see the controls on the camera.