rotating backs

[Larry Sandt]

I just bought a new view camera with a rotating back. Why is it when I rotate th e back, the image is still upside down.

[Jeff Hall]

I don't make many posts, but this one I have to say hah on. :-)

If you're serious, my apologies upfront.

[Ruud Knulst]

Rotate the lens 180 degrees, problem solved.

[Don Welch]

Larry,

If you were serious, you better say so soon, or this is going to get to be too much fun.

[tim atherton]

Oh oh - okay - if you really are serious - and I can see you actually could be... the image on the focus screen will always be upside down - it's one of the joys of Large Format - learning to read the picture upside down. The rotating back just allows you to go from horizontal to vertical format easily and quickly (and also make minor adjustemnts to the horizon line without fiddling with the tripod/head.).

If you weren't serious - I just about blew coffee out of my nose reading the post!

[Jim_2412]

Sounds like the bellows was insatlled upside down. I had this happen to me about 80 years ago. It took forever to figure it out. In your case, I would return it to the dealer :)

Just kidding...

[Hagai Kaufman]

Larry, just rotating the back woun't do -- you have to rotate the whole camera - i.e put your camera on the ground, then attach the tripod to the camera so that the legs form an upside-down pyramid faceing straight towards the sky. This works best with very very expensive and over-built cameras.

PS - of course, this technique works only in the southern hemisphere

Please let the group know how your test with this technique worked - i'm certain that this will be very entertaining..

thank you for your contribution to the moral of all of us in these hard times an d God bless America

Hagai Kaufman Tel Aviv

[Andre Noble]

Try rotating the photographer first. If that don't work, send new camera to me. Andre

[M.]

I would have thought this was one of the funniest posts I've ever seen, then I noticed the .edu suffix, and realized that it was certainly not a joke. Lucky for Larry, there are several appropiate answers given by his peers.

[Lad Perenyi]

SLR cameras have a prism that makes the image appear right side up. The image projected directly on the film or groundglass appears upside down and reversed. Some LF camera systems offer reflex viewers that will make it appear right side up.

For that matter, the image on your retina is upside down and reversed, but the brain figures it all out.

[Tom Perkins]

The last post explains why large format photography is such a good thing. Because the image is upside down on the viewing screen, it appears right side up on the retina, and the brain doesn't have to turn it upside down again to understand it.

[Larry Sandt]

Sorry people,

I am afraid I offended some people with my joke. Quite frankly I wanted some hum or in my life, and this question popped into my head and I figured, why not. There has to be some fellow large fo rmat photographers out there that would just a kick out of this question. We now life in a societly tha t is full of hate, anger, mistrust, and fear. I never lived that way before and I will not continue to life my life that way. So humor is the best way for me to deal with it. Thanks for the humorus responses, I really enjoyed them.

[M.]

Thank YOU, Sir.

[Jim Thompson]

Well done Larry

[RICHRRD ILOMAKI]

Wait wait!!

Does I understand about the southern hemisphere cameras not working north of the equator, but does that mean if I go to Lonndon and procede further east, then the image in my Rollie will start to move in the correct horizontal orientation?

My goodness- all these years.

[RICHRRD ILOMAKI]

OOOOPS

Scratch that first "Does".

[George Nedleman]

It must have something to do with the coriolis affect. George

[Brian Ellis]

Come on guys, it doesn't matter what hemisphere you're in. The image will always be upside down. The only way to reverse it is to use reversing film. That's why there's "negative" film (which leaves the image upside down) and "positive" film (which reverses it to right side up).

[Ron Spencer]

You all are just too funny. I had a really good laugh reading all the comments. I can't imagine that our fellow photographer was serious, but if he was, I'm sure it was just a case of asking a question before thinking like I'm sure we all do from time to time. I bet he wishes he didn't hit return so quick!

Hilarious!!! :)

(I wish you could fix the upside down problem that way)