Loupe magnification

[Nebular89]

What’s the best magnification for a loupe? I’ve got a 10x that I had for looking at slides but it seems to be too much. It’s useable but it’s magnifying the actual ground glass too

 

[moggi1964]

I'm about to try a 4x SK loupe when it arrives this week. From what I have read that's a pretty good mag to work with, 4 to 6x seems to be the recommendation.

 

[FishyFish]

I use a 4x, but think a 6x might be a bit more useful based on my experience.

 

[StephenM]

Years ago when I got my first loupe, I was advised by Linhof and Studio that 4-6 times was the most useful; I bought a 4 times and never regretted it, although I now use a 6x. On another forum, someone, answering the same question, said that they had both 4x and 6x, and used the 4x on 5x4 and the 6x on their 10x8 camera. So, I suppose format size may play a part (I now prefer 5x7 to 5x4, so I have moved up in size).

My own reasoning runs that if I view a 5x4 screen at 4x and the image is sharp, it should be sharp if I enlarge the negative to produce a print 4 times larger - which covers me for 20x16 or A2 prints from a 5x4 negative.

 

[ChrisR]

Mine is a Kaiser 4351 4.5x loupe, which seemed fine when I was using it for 4x5 (for all 12 frames!!), and is very useful for other applications IRL!