I recently had a session with my 8x10 Deardorff and couldn't find my loupe - so I used a larger one I normally use for examining negatives.

The back I use has a Fresnel. I haven't used the camera much but I found focusing (wide open) to be more difficult than I remember. I am also using a lens not as fast as I've used in the past.

I'm not sure if my difficulty is because I wasn't using my normal smaller loupe, or because of the different slower lens, or what; or does one have an easier time focusing on a ground glass vs Fresnel?

The difficulty I experienced was, under the loupe, I had difficulty seeing the point I wanted to focus on, it would just turn black sometimes. I believe I had to be at _just_ the right angle or the image would disappear.


Thanks for any info!

sg