"It's upside down!"

[retnull]

It's happened countless times: a friend or stranger is curious about the strange big camera. When I show them the image on the ground glass, they invariably exclaim, "It's upside down! Why?"

I have yet to come up with a quick, clear way of explaining this to the layman.
"It's just the way lenses work" is not satisfying.
What do you say?

[Jeff Dexheimer]

I remember learning in elementary school that lenses invert images. Seems like an easy conversation to me. light from the upper part of the lens is projected to the bottom of the gg and vice versa. Then tell them that you didn't even notice it.

[Leigh]

Tell them
"It's one of those optical things. Mirrors reverse images left to right, lenses invert things top to bottom."

- Leigh

[Mark Stahlke]

Tell them "Yeah, I've been meaning to fix that".

[drew.saunders]

If you're feeling a bit cruel: "No it isn't, it looks fine to me. Are you feeling OK?"

[hoffy]

Hah! My 9 year old had a look, laughed and when I explained it to her understood straight away. Got to love children and their absorbent minds.

[Mark Sawyer]

"It's upside down! Why?"

I have yet to come up with a quick, clear way of explaining this to the layman.
"It's just the way lenses work" is not satisfying.
What do you say?

I tell them the camera is from Australia...

[jcoldslabs]

"Lenses invert things top to bottom."

I usually say something along these lines and then add that the image on your retina is upside down, too, but your brain corrects for it.

Jonathan

[Steve Smith]

If you think of the lens as a pinhole it makes more sense. If that doesn't help then describe the light coming from the subject a a straight steel rod pivoting about the centre of the lens or a piece of string stretched between the subject and film passing through the centre of the lens.


Steve.

[Cletus]

I think it's interesting the way we (or at least I; but assuming any view camera user) don't even notice the upside-down image when focusing. I have to think about it and consciously look for it to realize it anymore. I wonder if our brain learns to automatically invert the image after awhile, similar to the way it does with our normal vision?