Anyone use reading glasses as a loupe?

[Bruce Barlow]

As my optometrist said about reading glasses, "They're a dollar at the dollar store."

I wear one contact lens, with the bare eye a +2.75, so I can use my bare eye rather than glasses. Then, I use my contacted eye to look at the composition, as fuzzy as it is, to make sure it's worthwhile. Works for me. I do keep a +3.25 pair of glasses in the toolkit, but they're rarely used.

[Herbert A Terbrack]

I can still focus without any reading glasses, however once I'm done focusing I can't see a thing unless I put my glasses on. This is the only advantage of being myopic and having 20/400 uncorrected vision in the left eye. I can get my face to within to three inches of the screen. I still use a loupe for critical focus. I've also used the +3.5 dime store reading glasses if I were wearing my contact lenses for correction. So many choices to make before the camera is even placed on the tripod. Wear my contacts and see or my glasses and see not so well but have my supervision (microscopic vision) when I take my glasses off.

[Tracy Storer]

There was another thread on this a while back, YES! I use +3 for focusing 8x10, didn't need them 2-3 years ago. I've tried them on a string around my neck and also sometimes just put them on top of my head....turning into my Dad.

http://www.largeformatphotography.in...ad.php?t=46305

[barrym]

I use reading glasses, and I use a focusing Schneider 4x loupe for my ground glass and don't need my glasses.

[AJ Edmondson]

Ain't it great to know that we can share so many frustrations!!! Prior to cataract surgery I couldn't seem to carry enough "different" pairs of glasses and it took as long to sort through them for the "right" pair for the operation performed as it took to set the camera up. I was beginning to look like the rack at the dollar store. Now, I can manage with only the loupe.

[Wally]

For composition I use those skinny reading glasses that come in a slim case. I put on two pair of 3.0, and let them multiply. They're thin, so it's easy to continue to see the real world by looking below them or above them.

When I think I've got it composed the way I want I put the loupe up to my eye, pushing the glasses up out of the way. I use a silvestri tilting loupe so I can see well in the corners when using the wide angle lenses.

[engl]

For those who have tried using high-power reading glasses for focusing, do you think +6 glasses could be used as an alternative to a loupe? Ive never even tried reading glasses so I dont know what to expect. Id like to use it on a 4x5 Crown Graphic to focus while keeping both hands free.

[Eric James]

Engl, yes, +6 glasses will be very useful and, in many situations, they will replace the need for a loupe. However, very strong reading glasses will have you focusing very closely to the ground glass - as you approach the ground glass your pupils converge; if the optician hasn't accounted for the decrease in inter-pupillary distance, your dominant eye will take over and your non-dominant eye will no longer help you judge sharpness.

I had a pair of +5 glasses made without the correct inter-pupillary distance factored in - I used them in place of a loupe but my vision was monocular. A year later I had a +7 pair made with the correct inter-pupillary distance factored in; this pair was ideal...until a lens fell out of the frame and into the snow as the sun was setting. Now I'm back to using a loupe

[engl]

Thank you for the information! Ive now ordered a pair of cheap +6 glasses to see how it works out. If the using only one eye up close turns out too bothersome I might look into having corrected glasses made, but I guess its going to get considerably costlier.

[Drew Bedo]

I am legally blind (~ 20/200 in the "good" eye) and use a pair of glasses 1/2 inch thick to read short passages. These also work under the focusing cloth of my Zone-VI. I can work on about 2 sq in at a time. A bar code type target placed in the composition also helps to get the focus right.

Another solution is the jeweler's head-set magnifier in whatever power you need. I use the strongest. The head-set can be used with prescription lenses or coupled with reading glasses.

Gear-up and shoot away!

Gear-up and shoot away!