A friend and I were having a discussion recently, which led us to an observation about technique.
I have just finished my first year of using a 4x5 camera. In that time, I've fou nd this forum to be very helpful for learning about equipment, technique, approa ches, etc.
One thing that gets discussed a lot is dark cloths: which is best, lightest, dar kest, best seal against light. From these discussions, I have to assume that som e people spend a lot of time under the dark cloth, evaluating their image compos ition on the ground glass.
Thinking about this, I realized that I spend very little time looking at the gro und glass. I mostly use it to check my framing, and for focussing. To check fram ing, I usually look at the corners and edges of the ground glass for reference p oints, and then look around the camera and find those reference points in the sc ene itself. I almost never spend any time evaluating the composition on the glas s.
My friend and I were discussing this, and he pointed out that my last twenty yea rs of 35mm photography were with Leica M rangefinder cameras, and not SLR's (my first four years of photography were with an SLR). He had recently changed from years of Nikon SLR's to a Mamiya 7 rangefinder, and found the transition difficu lt.
Our observation is that SLR users develop the habit of composing in their viewfi nder. More importantly, they evaluate composition in the viewfinder. With a rang efinder camera, on the other hand, the viewfinder does not serve well for evalua ting composition. With an SLR, you have a nice bright image with a black surroun d, but a rangefinder such as the Leica and Mamiya have frame lines, clutter, and additional image area around the frame. Thus a rangefinder user develops differ ent habits for evaluating composition. The viewfinder is only useful for checkin g framing and focussing.
So, it may be that photographers who move from SLR cameras to large format tend to prefer a well-sealed dark cloth in order to create an environment similar to the SLR viewfinder. Photographers who come from a different background have diff erent habits.
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