Having recently returned from a road trip along the central coast of California (PCH), one thing that I found difficult was seeing my compositions in the ground glass in dim or low lighting, i.e. very foggy/overcast days, dusk, etc.

I can't blame the camera (4x5 Arca Swiss), nor the glass (Rodenstock lenses all f4.5 or 5.6), and have transitioned from an old black t-shirt to a proper dark cloth (Harrison).

I still find that composing, i.e. placing elements on the glass the way I see them with my eyes can be very difficult, especially out towards the edges of the glass, which often serve as reference points for where I want things to be (what I want in/out of frame). What I ended up doing in many cases was using the loupe to focus on different elements and guesstimate where they should fall on the GG based on what I was seeing, which seemed to work ok for most of the shots, but not all of them.

Maybe it's just me, maybe I need more time acclimating to this way of shooting. I can't recall this being an issue with 6x6, even with a waist level finder. Or maybe it was just quite dark late afternoon along the coast and there's not much else I can do.

I did end up with a few nice images from the trip, so I'm thankful for that. This was the thing that stuck out in my mind as being the biggest challenge.

Figured the fine, experienced folks here might offer some ideas and suggestions.