The bellows are available here:
http://www.robertwhite.co.uk/ebony.htm#Labelvbell
I picked one up about a month ago but haven't had a lot of opportunity to use it although initially I was very impressed. I'm interested to hear opinions from those who have used them, including any 'gotchas' or peeves.
I would like to know how easy it is to use one of these if you wear glasses. Does it require you to take off your spectacles in order to see the whole of the ground glass?
I wear glasses, and I'd say from my first play around with it - no. I could easily see all four corners without having to squash my face up against it. But, as I said, I've not had a change to really use it in anger.
Hi Mike,
Linhof has a version of the hood you showed via the Robert White site. The big difference is that the Linhof version isn't a bellows. Rather, it's made of cloth and is designed to be ultra-flexible so that you can move it around to adequately view the image in the corners. IMHO, this is a much better design because you're not restricted by the lack of flexibility.
The downside to the current version is that it's made with an inner core of foam, which tends to fall apart over time. Their original version was made from a very soft leather and the more it's used, the more pliable and soft it becomes. Viewing is through a round viewfinder that has a degree of magnification to it.
Wearing glasses wasn't an impediment to using this particular finder either...it sure beat using a focusing cloth in a windy day!
Cheers
Life in the fast lane!
Hello Mike,
I have recently purchased the Robert White Viewing Bellows with magnifier and so far have been quite happy with my acquisition. I decided to buy the focusing hood after reading a post by Michael Kravit and have yet to remove it after placing it on my camera about 3 weeks ago.
There are a few things that I did not like and I will point them out, but please remember that in general I am very pleased with the hood and would not consider working without it now. The first aspect that did not work so well for me was that the magnifier consists of a B+W 55m # 3 diopter. I feel that this is just too weak and required me to extend the bellows too far away from the ground glass than what I would consider necessary.
I decided to try a bit of handiwork and with a bit of ingenuity I was able to add another +2 diopter to the unit. This worked well (total = + 5 diopter) and now I only need to have the viewing bellows about 2/3 extended to obtain a nice clean crisp view.
The next downfall was that stray light could enter in the magnifier around where your eye is and this somewhat degrades your viewing ability. I rectified this by adding a collapsible rubber lens hood that had the same filter threads as the + 2 diopter I had installed. Now I have the added magnification I like as well as a rubber protector for the eyepiece.
I do find that the focusing hood tends to highlight the hotspot on the ground glass when viewing. On a very recent shot I was attempting to tilt for an increase of depth of field and also using some back movements to change the perspective of the shot. Combining these two operations and moving the stiff viewing bellows hood around to check corners and such proved to be a task. This is the only time I considered removing the focusing bellows and re-attaching my dark cloth. I guess I would have done that but I wanted to be tenacious and see what the shot would look like if I stuck with the focusing bellows. I will be developing the film in the next week or so and will then be able to tell if I was successful with this or not.
The great advantage is that many of the locations that I shoot in the mountains or foothills seem to have a constant breeze or wind blowing. The focusing bellows quickly cures that problem and it is a real pleasure not dealing with a dark cloth blowing around. An unexpected benefit is that with the small additional weight of the attached bellow it now makes inserting and removing the film holders quite a bit easier.
Hopefully my experience can help you decide.
Kind Regards,
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