F/9.0 lenses, what's your tips/trick for better viewing?

[maltfalc]

rub a bit of grease on the center of your gg to brighten it up. not ideal, but it'll do in a pinch.

[ericantonio]

rub a bit of grease on the center of your gg to brighten it up. not ideal, but it'll do in a pinch.

Wait what? Ohhh, like vaseline it'll create a sort of lens like effect? interesting.

[maltfalc]

Wait what? Ohhh, like vaseline it'll create a sort of lens like effect? interesting.

it'll fill in the frosted surface, making it smoother, which means the light doesn't get diffused as widely, so it's brighter.

[ericantonio]

it'll fill in the frosted surface, making it smoother, which means the light doesn't get diffused as widely, so it's brighter.

Ohhhhh, science bit***s!!!

[Whir-Click]

If 4x5, nothing I've seen can hold a candle to Maxwell's HI-LUX Ultra Brilliant screen. I use it with a 150mm f/9 Germinar W and, viewed through the Horseman folding hood, have no problem composing and focusing with the camera in full sunlight. Bill supplies the same screen up through 5x7.

For larger formats, even with a Maxwell fresnel lens over Satin Snow ground glass, using a dark cloth is mandatory for f/9 lenses.

Fully agree, my Maxwell screen has been among the best money I’ve spent in large format.

[Doremus Scudder]

I don't have problems with my f/9 lenses either...

That said, here are some tips for low-light ground-glass viewing in general:

Get a dark cloth with Velcro or whatever that seals under and around you and the camera so you can get things really dark. Then wait; it takes more than 15 minutes for your eye to fully adjust to darkness, but four or five will do wonders. Take your time. Really, the number one thing that makes viewing difficult is that your eyes haven't adjusted to the dark or there is too much stray light under the dark cloth.

Use your loupe in line with the light path from the lens. This means that you need to tilt the loupe for anything off-axis. You can use a loupe with a skirt resting on the ground glass for bright situations, but in dim light, remove the skirt (or use a loupe without one, like I do always) so you can tilt it to the right angle. Yes, you need to fiddle around and move your head back and forth to find the frosted surface of the ground glass to focus on, but once you get the hang of it, it's fairly easy. And, the corners and sides of your ground glass will be a lot brighter.

In dim light, it helps to evaluate the scene without the camera in the way and decide on focus points for both movements and focusing (I do this in any kind of light). Then, you can simply concentrate on those particular spots in the scene and not deal with the entire image. Sure, it's nice to see that upside-down projected image on the ground glass, but it's not really all that necessary to see everything to focus.

Go out on a cloudy day with your camera, mount a lens and stop it down to f/11 or f/16 and practice the above techniques. If you get good at f/16, f/9 will be a snap.

Best,

Doremus

[Bernice Loui]

How to remove any grease of the GG can be an issue. If a Sinar GG is washed with water, the grid will literally float off the GG once soaked.

Bernice

rub a bit of grease on the center of your gg to brighten it up. not ideal, but it'll do in a pinch.

[Peter De Smidt]

How to remove any grease of the GG can be an issue. If a Sinar GG is washed with water, the grid will literally float off the GG once soaked.

Bernice

Which I unfortunately learned the hard way.

As Bernice said earlier, longer lenses don't have as much of a problem with viewing fall off as wide angles. F9 lenses aren't too bad. You can always add a reflex viewer or a bag bellows ala Sinar as a viewer. I occasionally do that for framing, but I usually switch to a loupe for fine focusing. Maxwell screens are great, but they are delicate and very expensive. I like mine, but if it broke, I'm not sure I'd replace it.

I did replace the screen on my Rollei TLR with an Intenscreen +. That was a massive Improvement. For 8x10, I just use a flexible page magnifier, a fairly course Fresnel. I just hold it up, sometimes angling it for affect. Frame....then I put it away to focus with a loupe.

[maltfalc]

Get a dark cloth with Velcro or whatever that seals under and around you and the camera so you can get things really dark. Then wait; it takes more than 15 minutes for your eye to fully adjust to darkness, but four or five will do wonders. Take your time. Really, the number one thing that makes viewing difficult is that your eyes haven't adjusted to the dark or there is too much stray light under the dark cloth.

sunglasses help.

[Bernice Loui]

There is more to this GG viewing stuff than brightest image on the ground glass.. There is the upside-down, reversed image projected by the lens on to the ground glass. Brighter GG image does not alone make focusing easier. If the 480mm f4.5 Xenar is used on the 5x7 sinar in bright sun, the GG image is SO bright, it literally can hurt the eyes to view this GG image... with focusing no less easier..

If the lens has high optical performance the image can literally "snap" into focus when properly focused.

Longer than normal focal lenght lenses tend to be easier to focus as a group, more challaning to focus as a group are wide angel lenses and more challanging when these wide angle lenses are used for dark interior images... with camera movements front & rear..

More challanging still are focus are Sorta Focus or soft focus lenses, differnt kettle of lens than the normal variety. These often have large full apertures (f4.5 and such), yet their large full aperture alone does not aid in focusing..

Point being, properly focusing the GG image is a learned skill & thing with those previously learned habits from using digital (mirrorless produces an artificial image for better or worst, this coupled with modern auto focus tends to mute manual focusing developent and skills related to focusing) or fixed box roll film cameras. This is much an issue of going up the LF view camera skills set, less about the viewing aid alone.


Bernice