Does a Digital Focusing Device Exist?

[DREW WILEY]

Look up reflex mirror viewers and magnifiers etc for certain view camera models. This kind of dilemma is nothing new; people had it figured out long before the current obsession with digital gadgets.

 

[Dan Fromm]

You still haven't commented on what your suggested solution to actually SEEING the ground glass is, when the ground glass is in a position you can't get your head behind...

You know, the topic at hand in this thread? The thing being discussed?

Luckless, please revisit the first post in this thread. To make things easier for you, the OP wrote:

This would be needed, for example, when the camera is angled down and high off the ground.

The most obvious solution is to use a shorter focal length. The next most obvious solution is a stool or ladder.

Oh, and by the way, the OP has been posting here and on https://www.largeformatphotography.info/forum/, asking about problems that are important to him. All were solved over a century ago. I don't understand quarreling with success.

 

[Luckless]

Luckless, please revisit the first post in this thread. To make things easier for you, the OP wrote:



The most obvious solution is to use a shorter focal length. The next most obvious solution is a stool or ladder.

Oh, and by the way, the OP has been posting here and on https://www.largeformatphotography.info/forum/, asking about problems that are important to him. All were solved over a century ago. I don't understand quarreling with success.

Some of us don't accept "Compose a different image than the ones you're trying to", or "Lug a highly impractical object with you" while ignoring that technology has advanced somewhat in the last 100 years as all that great of a response.

I can't understand anyone's desire to partake in a discussion while going so far out of their way to ignore the points actually being discussed and then pretending they're being remotely helpful.

 

[Dan Fromm]

Some of us don't accept "Compose a different image than the ones you're trying to",

Shorter lens, closer distance, same image.

 

[BobD]

If you mean distance measuring devices with digital displays, yes, there are a lot of them. They aren't made to attach to a camera and they won't focus for you. They are handheld devices that can accurately measure distance. There are laser types and ultrasonic types and they range from around $20 up to several hundred dollars. Some high-end ones even have a digital zoom viewfinder display and can measure out to several hundred feet.

 

[Rockaway Studios]

I could envision using a sliding back tethered to live view and measure focus peak a la Capture One, but for sheet or roll film it would require a sliding adapter that I have never seen. On my Sinar, even the ground glass graflock back is slightly off the plane that my digital slider has. I use ground glass to compose if I am stitching and the camera always needs slight refocus when I attach it and attach the digital back.

For the OPs example of a View camera against the ceiling, I've never been in a setup that I couldn't get behind the camera or use an optical reflex viewer, but for a thought exercise on how I *could* manage that shot without a focus aid....set up would be a ton of measuring (Distance from film plane back to subjec)t, , set up a target and camera to the same distances, focus, and set an exposure with as small an aperture as needed for depth of field to cover the subject (would assume it's shallow anyway given the angle described. Move camera into position and somehow compose the shot....and mutter under my breath the whole time about how much easier this would be if the Art Director wasn't insisting on film so I could just shoot digitally and use live view so he could sit on his butt and look at the proofs on his iPad, but hey, it's his money. No way in hell I would do a set up like that without someone paying me to do it!

 

[DREW WILEY]

A few days ago I ran into a situation analogous to certain others over the years. I needed to get a shot steeply downward right over the top of a tall bridge railing. Sometimes there has been a huge cliff below, or worse, a cliff with no guard railing! And any stepstool would be unsafe, even if there were a place to position it or logistically get it to the location. In most cases, the scene itself has been entirely at infinity focus anyway. So I could just preset that focus, orient the camera, and then use a machinist's inspection mirror to check the perimeters of the composition, which is a lot more portable gadget than a reflex viewer. A bit of fuss, yes, but nowhere near as messy as having both me and the camera splatter 500 feet below.