Ooops, Nothing to See Here... Move Along Now!

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Andy Grant
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Change of plan. :D
 
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I only use a prism finder because I cannot Get used to upside down, back to front left is right ETC. I do believe however that it is easier to focus with a prism finder,getting the eye closer and all that.

If you are OK using a WLF then save for a lens,that,s what I would do.
 
Waist Level Finders are great on square format cameras, but can be a struggle to use with rectangular formats as they make portraits hard to compose. I have one for my Pentax 67 for that very reason. Having said that, I don't care for using it much because it's so much heavier than the WLF. I'd rather stick with landscape format images and crop a 'portrait' down under the enlarger, just I would have done if it had been shot on my Hassy.
 
No idea what he said in the original post but this has got to be a challenge,:D see how long we can keep this thread going without knowing what @Andysnap said originally.

Waist level finders are great at waist level but I have tried using one on a head-height tripod and that got a bit interesting because to see the thing the body had to be on its side.

I've also used the Bronica SQA with waist level finder for street photography and found it a lot more comfortable than using an eye level finder, I guess because my face wasn’t pointing directly at the person I was photographing. “How do you know when an introvert is trying to be sociable?”

...

“They are looking at your shoes not their own” :)
 
Waist level finders are great at waist level but I have tried using one on a head-height tripod and that got a bit interesting because to see the thing the body had to be on its side.

I can't believe I never thought of that before!! I was trying to shoot over a fence and had the tripod at max height had to climb on a wall to see down the RB's wlf.
 
Well I did a bit of reading and the finder I was looking at was an older one and the CDs metering was a bit unreliable and you still have to transfer the settings to the camera and basically talked myself out of buying it while typing the original post.
I like waist level finders anyway so there's no need to spend money that I don't need to spend.
Thanks for the ideas and thoughts.

you know, elsewhere in the forum, you'd end up getting a warning for "disruptive thread edting"...

fortunately, we made certain allowances for the less decisive in F&C ;)

Cheers Mark, you know how it is with the elderly and confused :D:confused:
 
I can't believe I never thought of that before!! I was trying to shoot over a fence and had the tripod at max height had to climb on a wall to see down the RB's wlf.

You can, but it's a bit confusing! The other one is using the WLF to get a shot from high up by holding the camera upside down above your head. And if you don't want to hold the camera backwards in your hands, you have to have the subject behind you! :ROFLMAO:
 
WLFs are OK for the young, increasingly I find a mysterious obstruction interfering with my view. That may have something to do with bacon butties, burgers and pints at F&C meet-ups.
 
WLFs are OK for the young, increasingly I find a mysterious obstruction interfering with my view. That may have something to do with bacon butties, burgers and pints at F&C meet-ups.
Hey, don't blame the F&C meets, when he's attended, Andy has always exercised strict will-power and refused the very suggestion of a burger... either that or he's too bloomin tight to buy one! :D ;)
 
Meat is murder......:D

Lager however is luvverly :beer:
 
You can, but it's a bit confusing! The other one is using the WLF to get a shot from high up by holding the camera upside down above your head. And if you don't want to hold the camera backwards in your hands, you have to have the subject behind you! :ROFLMAO:
Sounds like a recipe for falling over

Lager however is luvverly :beer:
as does that :)
 
I managed to work out that it was his letter to Santa. Having posted it here, someone must have PM'd him to tell him that it only works if the content is kept secret, and that's why Andy had to take out the detail. Your wishes are still intact then, young Andy. Bless!:angelic:
 
Yes, I believe it was his letter to Santa.... but apparently Mrs Snap, upon seeing that the list contained words like 'Hasselblad' and 'Leica', threatened to write to Santa and tell him that Andy hadn't been a very good boy at all, unless those words were immediately swapped for the words 'Zenit' and 'Fed'! :D ;)
 
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Yes, I believe it was his letter to Santa.... but apparently Mrs Snap, upon seeing that the list contained words like 'Hasselblad' and 'Leica', threatened to write to Santa and tell him that Andy hadn't been a very good boy at all, unless those words were immediately swapped for the words 'Zenit' and 'Fed'! :D ;)
What's wrong with Zenits then? I'm the proud owner of two and was shooting with one of them last weekend.

But did Zenit ever do a camera with a waist level finder?
 
What's wrong with Zenits then? I'm the proud owner of two and was shooting with one of them last weekend.

But did Zenit ever do a camera with a waist level finder?
Nothing at all, it was the price difference between the brand names I was joking about. (y)
 
If this is a thread on waist level finders, I prefer them to a pentaprism. I first started using one on an Exakta; being short sighted, I could focus (using the magnifier in the hood) without glasses. Later on, I found that a WLF gave me an extra level of separation from the scene, and let me see it framed, as it would appear on film. The lateral reversal didn't bother me, even when panning for sports photos.

Moving on the medium format, I got as my second camera a Mamiya RZ67 (the first was a Mamiya RB67). In part, this was because it was possible to add a TTL prism to the RZ67 and get auto exposure if wanted. Once I'd examined the prism, I passed on it; heavier, yes; but it also gave a smaller image and included less of the image as it would appear on the film.

Those who know the bridge at Glen Nevis lower falls (the second as you approach from Fort William) will appreciate that the view from head height is better than a lower viewpoint. I have set up the RZ67 with WLF at head height on a tripod, and positioned myself (with difficulty) on the lower part of the railings to focus and compose. Even that experience has not induced me to want to swap.

My trickiest experience with a WLF was on the Exakta, in the Roman forum, where I wanted a portrait orientation. Getting the camera straight hand held when the image is upside down and laterally reversed required more experience/dexterity than I possessed at the time.

If this is a thread simply on change of plans, I did decide against popping in to our local PC World this evening due to the inclement weather to get a SSD to backup an ailing computer. Since I didn't buy anything (as I didn't pop in) there are no photos of a new purchase, and therefore nothing to see.
 
There is something about viewing the world through a waist level finder. There is also something to be said for avoiding PC World :)
 
If this is a thread simply on change of plans, I did decide against popping in to our local PC World this evening due to the inclement weather to get a SSD to backup an ailing computer. Since I didn't buy anything (as I didn't pop in) there are no photos of a new purchase, and therefore nothing to see.

You could post what you would have bought had you not changed your mind..


......on second thoughts..


I changed my mind about that, and in fact about posting the suggestion in the first place, but can't make my mind up whether to delete it..


:)
 
Changing your mind is a bit like changing your camera - you always hope that the new one will work better...
 
Ah, I've heard the expression "brain box". Now I know what they are...
 
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