Camera's for left handed users

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zooxanthellae

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Hi peeps

I wonder if anyone can give me any pointers, my son is 14 and has cerebral palsy. He loves to join me if im snapping but he is in a wheel chair with only the use of his left hand. This means he has to use a camera upside down or use a gorilla pod on the arm of his chair and he cant always see the screen.
Is there any camera out there that has a shutter button on the left hand side and is reasonably light weight?

I did try and sort something out for him last christmas but couldnt find anything and ended up buying him a fugi s5800 as it was small ish and looked like dads dslr, unfortunately he struggles with the problems above.

A remote control maybe an option but not many of the small cameras that seem to include them when i looked.

Any ideas or suggestions gratefully recieved.

Tony
 
Im not sure if there is anywhere to plug this into the fugi but something i will look into.

cheers for that
 
I don't think there is.
How ever, a gorilla pod would be nice as he doesn't really need to hold it, one free hand will let him do the job. (you will need to help him assembling it though)

Btw, just tried to shoot with only left hand, turn out to be quite hard, as you will need to have a very lightweight camera (even the D90 + 50 1.4 is quite heavy for only my left hand, gotta crank up the ISO to get shutter speed of 1/320 or so..)

dsc4655.jpg
 
Does he have any use of his right hand? Can he fire a remote cable release?

If so, then when taking a picture all the weight of holding a DSLR-style camera is properly done with the left hand cupped under the lens anyway. All the right hand does, pretty much, is fire the shutter. Plus a bit of steadying too, but nothing essential.

A cable release duplicates the functions of the shutter button, which can be held in the right hand anywhere. They're v cheap on ebay, but you obviously need a camera with a remote cable socket.

There are plenty of flash brackets about, most of which are designed for left-handed use. If you rig one up with the cable release, that should sort it all with the left hand :thumbs: Here's one for £15 http://www.warehouseexpress.com/buy-kaiser-k1100-folding-flash-bracket/p1006101
 
Not sure if this helps or not..........

I lost the use of my right arm last year and asked some questions about how to manage 'one handed'

Manfrotto do a grip (322RC2) which enables you to do everything on a tripod one handed. I can be simply flipped for left or right handed use.

Anyway - the grip also has a dedicated add on (322RS Electronic Shutter Release) which enables you to focus the camera and take the shot from the grip itself rather than the camera.

Might not be what you're after but it made life very easy for me.
 
cheers peeps, i will look into the manfrotto head and release as my son has no use of his right hand, his left hand has about 85% use so a little weak for heavy cameras.
Looks like a small dslr maybe on the shopping list together with a tripod and the head above together with a release . The tripod maybe problematic as his chair might get in the way but im sure we can work around it somehow.

Thanks to everyone for their comments, Jay isnt the best photographer but he really enjoys it and thats what its all about on a hobby level after all.

Regards Tony
 
Hi, I was born with my right hand missing so I can sympathize with your situation here!

I have been researching options for myself and have come across a couple of ideas:

Bite/tongue shutter release (commonly used by parachuters/sky divers)

Shoulder pad (there are a couple on eBay at the moment, check out item no 170512878624. I think these are often used to help support large camcorders. It may be possible to combine a shoulder support with a remote shutter release so your son has his left hand free to zoom/focus and take the picture.

Otherwise, I have seen on http://rollingfstop.blogspot.com/2008/12/camera-mount-for-wheelchair-photography.html a mount for a wheelchair arm which looks like your son could have his left hand completely free to operate the camera.

Hope this helps and gives you a few ideas!

Regards

Carol
 
Cheers Carol, really appreciate the info, the mount looks superb so will try for a qoute. Looks expensive so might get a shock and have to look for something cheaper lol.

regards and thanks Tony
 
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