left handed cameras

I know this isn't strictly the topic of the thread but it has been referred to enough for another comment. The cost of retooling to make RHD cars is massive. So much so that Renault have dropped some models from the UK (RHD) market completely!
No more Kangoo car or van , Wind roadster, Modus, Laguna & even the original grand daddy of the MPV's the Espace!
Older people loved the Modus for the driving position & ease of entry/exit plus lots of Kangoo cars were ideal for wheelchair conversions so quite a lot of customers are going to be left out in the cold.
This decision was made purely on the grounds that the numbers of these vehicles sold in RHD form wasn't enough to cover the costs of retooling etc
Sad but true
 
joebh123 said:
...When have you ever seen someone using one with only one hand?...
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Seems quite popular in some circles.... ;) :LOL:

erkezes.jpg


You see a lot of paps shooting one-handed and I do it most of the time when using off camera flash because I'm holding a soft box in the other. Not an easy way to shoot though :)
 
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As a leftie I do not see a camera as right handed.
It's got so many buttons you need two hands.

If you were a person who upgrades regularly I wouldn't think there would be a big market for a second hand left handed camera and prices would be much lower.
Would a right handed person buy a used leftie camera if the price was right?
I don't see why not.
 
Rebel t3i said:
Not what I mean rob as your explanation could quite easily be explained by say being a life long canon user then suddenly switching to nikon
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Not really. The primary controls are still in approximately the same place. You still use the same finger to fire the shutter. The same thumb to jab buttons on the back - just a few buttons work different.

Not like a totally different hand navigating around flipped controls. Not at all.
 
Left handed my self but never had a problem from the start, but then again my right arm is my strongest and throwing arm if that changes anything.

Think its just somthing you just get on with.
 
Tirpitz said:
I know this isn't strictly the topic of the thread but it has been referred to enough for another comment. The cost of retooling to make RHD cars is massive. So much so that Renault have dropped some models from the UK (RHD) market completely!
No more Kangoo car or van , Wind roadster, Modus, Laguna & even the original grand daddy of the MPV's the Espace!
Older people loved the Modus for the driving position & ease of entry/exit plus lots of Kangoo cars were ideal for wheelchair conversions so quite a lot of customers are going to be left out in the cold.
This decision was made purely on the grounds that the numbers of these vehicles sold in RHD form wasn't enough to cover the costs of retooling etc
Sad but true
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The decision not to sell those models here had little to do with the retooling costs as they were all already on the market here, it was more to do with no-one wanting the cars in the first place.....
 
I am also a leftie and have no problems using a "right handed" camera (you may not agree if you saw some of my shots but that's another story) I also use a mouse right handed but do struggle with scissors.
 
Flash In The Pan said:
The decision not to sell those models here had little to do with the retooling costs as they were all already on the market here, it was more to do with no-one wanting the cars in the first place.....
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plus they were due a facelift in the next year or so which usually involves dashboards & centre consoles plus head& tail lights etc.....

there's a lot more to it than welding a bar onto the pedals & moving the steering wheel over :thinking:
 
I think if the camera was starting from scratch now, then there 'may' be a market for left hand versions, but the camera market is a mature one, and those left handed people who want to take pictures will have adapted, that's if they saw it as a problem when they first picked up a camera in the first place. :shrug:

Comparing a camera to a car is definitely not judging like for like, not even considering the fact that cars are not right or left handed because of the driver. In a left or right hand drive car, a lot stays the same, wheels, engine, body, seats. Dashboard, lights and pedals will change. I'm sure there are more complications, but there is a lot that stays the same.

Now with a camera, the body would need to change, nevemind the Canon mock up earlier, the lower range DSLRs are having a smaller and smaller area on the left hand side. (from the back) Gone is the design which has equal area each side of the lens because there is no need for rollers for the film each side of the lens, The the electronics would need to be re-designed to fit in a different shaped (left hand) grip, some buttons may need to be changed too.

For the size of the market, plus or minus 10%, and for the actual number of that percentage would feel the need to change, it would not just be paying a bit more, it would be paying a lot more, and it would not just be the left handed people, the right handed people would have to pay a lot more too. I can see it now, 'why do I have to pay so much more for my left handed camera? They are made in the same factory after all'. :shrug: :bonk: And then the, 'I have a left handed camera, but can't get a left handed lens to go with it'. :shake:

It's an interesting topic, and good to talk about, but not economically feasible in the real World imho. If it was, they would be here already, as some left handed people can be very vocal about their plight in a right handed World. ;) I mean, how easy is it to redesign scissors and pencil sharpeners, (for example) and indeed they do, but how often do you see them in a shop that sells such things? And those are very simple designs.
 
Did I mention I own what is technically a left-handed camera? No? I must have forgotten about it, it's the Ihagee Exa IIb.
 
-Rob- said:
Anyway, why would it even make a difference to a left hander anyway? Using an SLR is a 2 handed job. Left and right hands are used to press buttons, hold the camera and adjust lenses. Whatever you currently "struggle" to do with your right hand you'd just "struggle" to do soemthing else with different buttons.
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Agreed.
Werecow said:
I can't really see what functions on a camera are actually advantageous to right-handed people? I "hold" my camera with my left hand mainly (supporting camera and lens etc). My left hand is where most of my technique in keeping the camera still comes from and my most important arm & hand in the whole process.
As for the rest of the camera controls, apart from the shutter button, they move from side to side depending on camera model anyway.
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Agreed. Plus, all the controls on lenses (IS on/off, AF/MF, distance delimiters, etc.) are on the left and can't sensibly be used with the right hand.

ChrisR said:
There are, of course, other reasons for wanting a left-handed camera than just being left-handed... some people only have a left hand.
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Fair point Chris, but I'm sure you'd agree that's not likely to be a large or lucrative market segment. (Plus, as others have noted, DSLRs really need two hands...)

It's an interesting and good point you make about one-handed operation of compact cameras though. Unlike DSLRs, there's enough variation in the sizes and shapes to allow some of them to be MUCH more suitable for one-handed left-handed operation than others.
 
the only reason I bought up the car comparison is that some people said that it would be to costly and difficult to produce a camera left hand drive.
Some also replied that it is easier and cheaper to produce a lhd car compared to producing a lhd camera I'm still laughing at that one
Last time I saw a new car priced at £300 car was in 1950
They make lhd and Rhd cars because they have to as most counties are lhd a few are rhd
same could be said for cameras except the other way round most people are right handed a few are left handed
According to most of you it matters not if the camera is lhd or rhd so they could have made them all lhd and it would be perfectly fine for every one then
 
i occasionally use mine one handed when walking the dog and being a lefty it makes it a bit awkward holding one handed in my right i just know id be more stable in my left hand
 
As a left-handed person I find this thread quite amusing.

It is widely agreed that being left handed stems from the right side of the brain being the predominant side, which controls the left side of the body. The right side is also the "creative" side - surely a benefit for a photographer?!

As for the need for left handed cameras? Nonsense. For me it would be like trying to lick me elbows.
 
I'm a lefty myself and feel i the present designs are a advantage to us as we have our best hand stabilizing the lens, and also controlling zoom and focus, and the controls on the right also feel natural as i have had to adapt to doing most things in life with my right hand, so i personally wouldn't touch a left hand body with a barge pole
 
Rebel t3i said:
the only reason I bought up the car comparison is that some people said that it would be to costly and difficult to produce a camera left hand drive.
Some also replied that it is easier and cheaper to produce a lhd car compared to producing a lhd camera I'm still laughing at that one
Last time I saw a new car priced at £300 car was in 1950
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Relative cost of production: Cars have lots of spare space inside for components, and the body shape isn't dictated by whether they are lh or rh drive. This means that most components can be shared by left \ right hand drive cars as they are exactly the same. This would not be the case with "lh" cameras. This means the relative cost of producing a "lh" camera is higher. Additionally, the demand for "lh" cameras is virtually non-existent making the whole excercise pointless.

Rebel t3i said:
They make lhd and Rhd cars because they have to as most counties are lhd a few are rhd
same could be said for cameras except the other way round most people are right handed a few are left handed
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They make rh drive cars "Because they have to"? Really? Who forces them? I thought it was because a) there is a market for them (whole countries!) and b) they're economically viable to produce. If an idea's profitable, manufacturers will run with it. If not then they walk away (lh cameras).

Rebel t3i said:
According to most of you it matters not if the camera is lhd or rhd so they could have made them all lhd and it would be perfectly fine for every one then
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Yes, same with pianos.
 
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Rebel t3i said:
t
They make lhd and Rhd cars because they have to as most counties are lhd a few are rhd
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I wouldn't call about 30% of the World few, fewer than 70% for sure. 10%, now that's few. ;)

With regards to a £300 car, of course you can't compare price for price. I would think the difference in producing a right and left hand car would be 10-30% (guestimate) increase in costs, though some costs are absorbed to some degree by the left hand drive cars, though there is sometimes a premium to pay. And that is because a lot of the components are shared. With a lhd camera, while the chips and resistors used would be the same, they would have to probably be redesigned on a new circuit boards. The body and some of the buttons would need to be bespoke too. It would almost be like designing a new camera, which would incur hugs costs. And there is no way that rhd photographers, or indeed the left handed photographers who wouldn't want to swap, would incur any costs for that imho.
 
Rebel t3i said:
Some also replied that it is easier and cheaper to produce a lhd car compared to producing a lhd camera I'm still laughing at that one
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In relative terms it is cheaper to produce a rhd car than a lhd camera. I'm sure I've explained this already, but anyway...,

Lets look at, say, a Ford Focus. To enable that as a car to be either lhd or rhd the only structural change that need be made is to the bulkhead ( unless it's still like the old Mini, Rover SD1 etc which all had the fitments for both lhd and rhd ) plus a few ancillary components.

Now let's pretend it has to be built like a camera - the rhd version now, on top of all the new ancillary components now requires an entirely different bodyshell and the engine and transmission need to be completely redesigned as they won't fit in the new body. All
of this costs as much as designing a new car from scratch and there is a potential market of realistically less than 5%, perhaps as low as 1% of that of the lhd version.

It all comes down to economies of scale, the unit costs for a run of 1000 of something is always going to be far greater than if 100,000 are made.

If there was a viable market then the shops would be full of the things.......
 
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Whilst we're talking about LHD and RHD cars, here's a fascinating little illustration of how relatively similar they are.

I'll introduce it with a little question: On which side of your car is the fuel filler? And - more interestingly - why is it on that side?

The answer is that most European and American cars have the fuel filler on the right, and most Japanese cars have the fuel filler on the left. The reason for this is because, in the old old days when filling stations were small roadside affairs, the car would just pull up alongside the pump so it made sense for the filler to be on the nearside (left in RHD countries, right in LHD countries). It's less clear cut than it used to be, because many marques are now part of multi-national companies, but manufacturers such as Citroen, Mercedes and BMW who have always been independent still put the filler on the "traditional" side, which for them is the right. (Except BMW put the filler for the Mini on the left, because that's where it traditionally was on Minis.) You can even spot curiosities of automotive history: Saabs and Volvos tend to have the fuel filler on the left because Sweden used to be RHD until 1967.

The point of all this, of course, is that manufacturers don't move the fuel filler to make cars for export. All Mercedes have the fuel filler on the right, regardless of whether they are LHD or RHD.
 
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How much would it cost to make a left-handed person right-handed - and would you need to move their heart?
 
For me, as a leftie, it's not the handling of the camera that's an irritation but the fact that my dominant eye is my left which results in my nose greasing up the LCD on the back of the camera. If they were to design a leftie model the cost would be so prohibitive that hardly anyone would be able to afford them.

and some of you should stop taking the P out of lefties. some of the greatest minds in history were lefties (and not politically!).
 
There's plenty of right handers who shoot using their left eye.
If I'm using a rifle or pistol it's always using my right eye but when I bring my camera up I always put it to my left eye......... Weird!
 
Stuart my transit filler is on the left
also a note regarding sides later cars show which side on the fuel gauge with a little arrow
and if you are having to buy a lhd car I don't think it is so important which side the fillers on I think it is far more important that the steering wheel is on actually on the left lol

Good point about the left eye being dominant and the cameras not being possible to use comfortably
I have test this and it is awkward due to the nose, it would however appear that we may have to have Michael Jackson noses fitted in order to rectify this issue
Fortunately my right eye is my predominate eye
 
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I'm left-handed and left-eyed - the handedness is not a problem - but when I put my left eye to the view-finder - my nose/face gets in the way of the buttons (and I'm always wiping grease from the screen). It's not a significant problem - I can still comfortably use the rear dial, auto-focus and exposure lock buttons.

I have considered attaching a cheap microfibre cloth to the strap for wiping the nose-grease off the screen though!
 
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