How do you handle seeing things upside down on the ground glass?

gzinsel · Jul 21, 2015

+1 for what Ken said

Ian Grant · Jul 21, 2015

JPJackson said:
"work the edges" was the motto/mantra back in the day.

It still is In reality it's the only rule of composition, it's choosing what you're actually photography, setting the boundaries. It makes it very much easier to see how an image will work.

Ian

MattKing · Jul 21, 2015

I expect that the dark cloth helps a lot - when you immerse yourself in an upside-down world, it is a little easier to handle than a world where there is more than one set of "ups and downs".

Ian Grant · Jul 21, 2015

MattKing said:
I expect that the dark cloth helps a lot - when you immerse yourself in an upside-down world, it is a little easier to handle than a world where there is more than one set of "ups and downs".

Although I always carry a dark cloth most of the time I don't use it, it depends on the lighting conditions & direction, my screens are quite bright which helps enormously. I'm very quick at setting up my LF cameras so in practice I spend very little time looking at the ground glass screen.

I think as well when you know your equipment, particularly the lenses, you do most of the composition mentally and largely subconsciously as you walk to the final (tripod) spot, that's the point I check the edges of the frame, sometimes I'm working hand held, and make any final adjustments.

Ian

David A. Goldfarb · Jul 21, 2015

After many years of having a view camera pointed out my window, one day I was using a DSLR on the same tripod to photograph something with a long lens, and my wife was surprised to look at the LCD screen and said, "Oh, it's right side up!"

DREW WILEY · Jul 21, 2015

I just stand on my head the rest of the time, so that everything looks normal to me!

cliveh · Jul 21, 2015

Some may recognise that my avatar is a Leitz Vidon finder which allows you to view the image upside down and/or right/left, left/right on a 35mm camera. Such a view enables you to view the composition in an abstracted and detached way, as you may on a large format camera. I think this ability is the greatest single most advantage of any photographic device. HCB used one for most of his life.

RobC · Jul 21, 2015

turn the camera upside down

When I did 4x5 the upside down image didn't bother me at all. However, I did get a reflex viewer becasue I hated using a dark cloth.

DREW WILEY · Jul 21, 2015

I find upside-down viewing on that opalescent groundglass to be a real advantage. Why? Because it tends to abstract the image into a composition instead of a scene or subject, and makes you more aware of the borders and content in a formal sense, how to best crop and
otherwise compose it. View cameras are excellent visual discipline in this way.

Vaughn · Jul 21, 2015

Our eyes turn everything upside down (and backwards) and our brains have to work hard to flip the image over. So having the the GG image upside down (but not backwards) makes it a little easier for our brains!

My printing method uses a single transfer which flips the image right/left so dealing with that keeps me on my toes!

Sirius Glass · Jul 21, 2015

winger said:
I got used to the upside down GG a lot easier than the left-right switch on my Hasselblad. It's just a matter of doing it more, I think. I still have trouble with the Hasselblad and I've had it much longer.

I do not like the left right reversal on the Hasselblad, so I use a PME [prism] which gets rid of that problem and provides a light meter.

Sirius Glass · Jul 21, 2015

RobC said:
turn the camera upside down

When I did 4x5 the upside down image didn't bother me at all. However, I did get a reflex viewer becasue I hated using a dark cloth.

I turn the lens upside down.

trondsi · Jul 22, 2015

winger said:
I got used to the upside down GG a lot easier than the left-right switch on my Hasselblad. It's just a matter of doing it more, I think. I still have trouble with the Hasselblad and I've had it much longer.

It's the other way round for me, perhaps because I'm used to making images using a mirror when painting or drawing. I got used to my Rolleiflex in a day or two, but I still have to take a look in the viewfinder of my Crown Graphic (or I turn around and bend over the top of the metal hood to look into the ground glass)

darkosaric · Jul 22, 2015

. pɐq os ʇou sᴉ ʇᴉ ʞuᴉɥʇ I :uʍop ǝpᴉsd∩

Cybertrash · Jul 22, 2015

I mostly shoot in a studio, so what I do is to hang upside down from the ceiling like a bat. I find that it really helps! Makes the models a bit weirded out sometimes though... Maybe it's the big cape I use as a darkcloth...

DREW WILEY · Jul 23, 2015

Speaking of bats, the darkcloth also comes in handy when you use it as your batsuit when jumping off cliffs with a GoPro camera attached to
your head. Your pictures will be worth more after you're dead anyway.

removed account4 · Jul 23, 2015

hi drew
i know what you mean ... but whenever i have used a LF camera on the edge of a cliff
i made sure to be wearing a harness and a web tied to a deadman that could take a 15,000# dead-drop
so i would just lose my camera/gear and get battered on the edge and climb up ... a 350 foot drop would be a bummer.

DREW WILEY · Jul 23, 2015

I've sure been on some dicey perches. Once I was tied to a narrow ledge all night for matching sunset/dawn shots with the camera propped on a slab or rock barely big enough to fit a tripod on. It's when you gotta squiggle in front to shut and cock the lens that it gets real interesting. There have been times I've leaned out over more than a thousand feet of nothing but air to do that. Back when I was a teenager still in my mid-50's I'd routinely work out on tiny little ledges with a 90lb pack, so that I was comfortably hauling the view camera pack up Class 3 scrambles in the mountains, or up a sixty degree ice-axe hack. Now that I'm old and tired, it's a 75 lb pack, and the ledges are getting a bit wider every year it seems.

removed account4 · Jul 23, 2015

DREW WILEY said:
I've sure been on some dicey perches. Once I was tied to a narrow ledge all night for matching sunset/dawn shots with the camera propped on a slab or rock barely big enough to fit a tripod on. It's when you gotta squiggle in front to shut and cock the lens that it gets real interesting. There have been times I've leaned out over more than a thousand feet of nothing but air to do that. Back when I was a teenager still in my mid-50's I'd routinely work out on tiny little ledges with a 90lb pack, so that I was comfortably hauling the view camera pack up Class 3 scrambles in the mountains, or up a sixty degree ice-axe hack. Now that I'm old and tired, it's a 75 lb pack, and the ledges are getting a bit wider every year it seems.

yeah ... as they say 1st step's a doozy !

DREW WILEY · Jul 23, 2015

As kids growing up in the mountains we had a saying, Nobody has ever been hurt by a fall ... It's the sudden stop at the bottom that you
gotta worry about!

mhcfires · Jul 23, 2015

DREW WILEY said:
As kids growing up in the mountains we had a saying, Nobody has ever been hurt by a fall ... It's the sudden stop at the bottom that you
gotta worry about!

Most Iron Workers I know have that saying.

RalphLambrecht · Jul 23, 2015

trondsi said:
When using the ground glass on my Crown Graphic, I have found that I can easily view it the right way simply by tilting my head, and using the metal focusing hood. I also have the viewfinders attached to my camera. I suppose this is not the case for other kinds of LF cameras. Have you simply gotten used to seeing it upside down, or do you have any tricks up your sleeves?

Your brain had all you life to get used to an upside-down-picture.

that is what is projected onto the retina in your eyes The brain simplyreverses itin real timesince you were born.

RobC · Jul 23, 2015

I have a solution for you...

http://www.grand-illusions.com/acatalog/Reversing_Goggles.html

every large format photographer should have a pair to make themselves look even cooler...

DREW WILEY · Jul 23, 2015

No thanks. Think I'll stick with my red laser glasses, that let me see contrast the way pan film does thru a red filter.

removed account4 · Jul 23, 2015

DREW WILEY said:
As kids growing up in the mountains we had a saying, Nobody has ever been hurt by a fall ... It's the sudden stop at the bottom that you
gotta worry about!

thats funny

i was scared of heights for a long while and when i was in college
i took a rock climbing class ... now i am not afraid of heights
i am just afraid of landing without a belay

How do you handle seeing things upside down on the ground glass?

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How do you handle seeing things upside down on the ground glass?

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