So in the past year my perfect vision has gone to pot and now I can not read the apertures and speeds on my shutter dials, amongst other things. This is a hard, cruel transition for me because for 48 years my vision was one of the few things that worked perfectly on my body and now even it is crapping out and the warranty sucks.

My lovely wife made me get an expensive pair of narrow designer-y reading glasses that I constantly take on and off. I also have a couple pair of $15 reading glasses from the Supermarket. I'm thinking about getting one of those old lady eyeglass chains, at least since I am no longer a ski bum and Croakies are kind of bulky.

But it sucks! Worse than bunions and impotence! This getting old crap blows so much.

I've stuck diopters on my small format gear but I found I could no longer focus a TLR easily. I didn't like focusing an SLR either, although I could get used to it -- but right now I am thinking a 35mm rangefinder is the way to go for small format focusing success. Of course AF works on digital but I find it harder to confirm that the AF is focusing on what I want it to focus on, so it slows me down.

On the large format ground glass I adjusted my loupe to give me a sharp image but I find I am not as precise as I used to be. I used to be able to focus 99% accurate without any loupe, so this really is a pain.

I'm going to try a Graflex RB slr next to see if I can stick my head w reading glasses into the furry hood ;-)

What strategies work best for those of you who have decent far vision but need reading glasses for camera operation? What's the smoothest working method -- any tips?

I guess I am just moaning but since most of the readership here is old coots I figure you'll be sympathetic or at least share a smirk....