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Thread: Focusing The View Camera

  1. #1

    Focusing The View Camera

    Well I'm about to get my feet wet again. I have my new to me camera, my first lenses are due today. I just cobbled together a gg loupe from a broken Canon 50mm f/1.4 lens that to my eye is as sharp as my Zeiss 3x 6x6 film loupe and in a couple days I'll have my roll film holder.

    I would like opinions on why focusing with a loupe is any better than trial and error reiterations with the fine focus knob. I seldom use any movements other than small front tilt and or front rise. Normally I focus with highpower reading glasses by normal methods. Once everyting looks equally sharp I use the fine focus knob to go back and forth till I find the middle ... or the sharpest focus that 'I' can see.

    I have to do the same thing if I use a loupe. What I see with my eyes is never 'tack' sharp as with my old and astigmatically challenged eyes nothing is ever perfectly sharp unless I have my 'real' glasses that are not as powerful as the 3x five and dime reading glasses I use. I can't stand looking through a loupe with any glasses on. I have focused my loupe so that it is sharp for me except for the astigmatism.

    This is probably not comming through clearly. I should probably get special glasses made only for view camera focusing. So apart from the glasses thing .... why is a loupe better than the other focusing I described?

    Thanks.

  2. #2
    MIke Sherck's Avatar
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    Focusing The View Camera

    Keep in mind that lenses for LF are typically on the long side with respect to experiance you may have had with smaller formats, and that along with longer focal lengths comes shallower depth of field. Focusing errors with short focal length lenses can, of course, be masked by depth of field; you have less of a safety margin with longer lenses. You can't always correct for depth of field problems by using smaller f/stops, either: that often drives exposures into inconveniently long times. So, what a loupe does for you is to magnify the image on the ground class, so you can be sure of more precise focus all over your image, not just in the center. If your eyes are sharp enough perhaps you don't need the loupe; personally, I find mine to be invaluable. It can be something of a three-hand circus at times, managing the loupe, movements, and focus all at the same time, but it isn't all that difficult with practice (at least, not difficult with my lightweight loupe.)
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  3. #3

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    Focusing The View Camera

    Scott - I find that the combination of a decently bright and sharp focussing screen (such as a Maxwell) and a pair of reading glasses allows me to leave my loupe at home. Particularly nice about the glasses is that they allow me to judge focus as an aspect of the overall composition, and this, with the further aspect of being able to use both eyes at once, increases the "zen factor" of the experience. When I began to use reading glasses to focus, I'd usually bring a loupe along as I doubted my abilities to focus without it - but cross checking my accuracy with a loupe proved, time and time again, that the glasses were plenty accurate.

  4. #4

    Focusing The View Camera

    Scott:

    If you wear glasses as I do, you might want to try a pair of inexpensive clip-on, flip-up magnifiers designed for fly fishermen. (They look like clip-on sunglasses, but with clear lenses instead of tinted.) They are available in +1.50, +2.00, +2.50, and +3.00 diopters. You can find them at fly fishing stores or on line at www.flyfishusa.com; cost is about $12.00 a pair. A similar product is also available that pins onto the underside of a ball cap bill.

    The +3.00 magnifiers that I use allow a full view of a 4x5 groundglass at a distance of about 6 inches. They are also a big help when adjusting/setting the shutter.

    Only problem is the small protective rubber tips on the clamps kept falling off; I finally glued them in place.

    As good as the magnifiers are, I still use a lupe to check final focus.

  5. #5

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    Focusing The View Camera

    The groundglass is subject to the same principles as viewing a print -- at a given viewing distance, there will be a circle of confusion that you will perceive as a point. As long as the CoC of a point (in the object space) is rendered on the groundglass at or below that size, you will perceive it as being perfectly focused.

    Enter magnified viewing. Your dimestore reading glasses magnify the image on the GG so that you can perceive a smaller circle of confusion, thus you are able to focus better than with your naked eyes.

    Take another step up in magnification with a loupe, and you should be able to control (and "control" is the operative word) the plane of focus even better. In theory, the more you increase the magnification, the better you can focus; in practice you'll reach a point where you're seeing the grain of the GG and not really getting any advantage. That seems to happen for most people at around 5x -- 6X, but of course varies with the groundglass and the person looking at it.

  6. #6

    Focusing The View Camera

    Thanks guys. John, that's what I thought. I've had pretty much the same experience but was just not sure due to lack of practice that I was truly seeing what it seemed I was seeing. Thanks.

  7. #7

    Focusing The View Camera

    Louis,

    I've been through 3 pairs of those things. I keep breaking them. But I was using them for fishing not photography ). I think you have an excellent idea. I'll get a pair of those puppies at 3x and force myself to put them into a hard case when not in use instead of in my shirt pocket which is how I killed the others. Thanks.

  8. #8

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    Focusing The View Camera

    I use reading glasses bought in a drugstore to compose and general focus. Then I use a loupe to fine focus. Maybe it's my eyes but even with the reading glasses I usually find that I can improve the focus with the loupe, i.e. reading glasses alongedon't provide optimum focus. That's true with the Maxwell screen I recently added and has been true with all previous screens.
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  9. #9

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    Focusing The View Camera

    I have plenty of reading glasses, and can not imagine taking a photograph without a loupe. I also can't imagine why one would want to try to.

  10. #10

    Focusing The View Camera

    Jim,

    Because it's a giant pain in the butt cluster ____. If I could get away with just strong reading glasses I would do it in a heartbeat. I've never tried a magnifying binocular reflex viewer but if one worked i'd never take it off my camera.

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