I've seen reference to different cameras having the fresnel installed first then the ground glass on the exterior, and to some cameras having the ground glass first with fresnel on the exterior.
Is there an inherent advantage to one approach or the other - in terms of brightness and ease of focusing with a loupe?
The reason I'm curious is because I have a Wista DX that I purchased used, and it came with the ground glass installed first and the fresnel on the outside. The ground glass was also shimmed slightly. I recently changed out the ground glass for a Satin Snow and put it back together the same way (glass then fresnel). I tried taking out the shims, did some focus tests and determined that they were necessary and put new ones back in. The shims are actually about the same thickness as the fresnel. It works fine now and the focus is accurate.
However, I've seen reference to new Wistas having the fresnel installed first then the ground glass. This seems to make sense based on the thickness of the shims that I had to install.
Is there any advantage to changing my setup to a fresnel then glass orientation? I don't want to mess with it if there's no reason to, but if there's a benefit I wouldn't mind swapping them out.
Thanks!
Bookmarks