Left Eyed Photographers

Thomas Wagner · Jan 24, 2005

Just an interesting question.

How many folk out there are left eyed like me? I have to sometimes contort mayself and the like as I view things with my left eye.

I am sure you have all heard about this simple test to find out predominant eye, but here it is anyway

Hold your thumb up and extend your arm full out.
Look past (and actually through it) at some distant object with both eyes.
Place your thumb over the object without closing an eye.
Close your right eye, if your thumb stays over the object you are left eyed.

I am right handed, but left eyed (and I kick a ball best with my left foot).

Makes for interesting squinting as a lot of stuff is intended to be used with the right eye.

What can I say, it's been a quiet day....

Tom

TPPhotog · Jan 24, 2005

Yep it's quiet day ..... I'm right eyed it seems

Kevin Caulfield · Jan 24, 2005

I'm also a lefty.

Joe Lipka · Jan 24, 2005

That is what drove me to large format. Kept sticking my thumb from the frame advance lever in my right eye.

papagene · Jan 24, 2005

Left-eyed gene here!

Bruce Osgood · Jan 24, 2005

Left eye, hand and foot. My right eye has also been stabbed many times with the film advance lever.

Lee L · Jan 24, 2005

Back over a couple of decades ago when I was selling, I would always ask customers if they were left eyed when they showed interest in a Nikon FM(2) or FE(2). If they were, I'd tell them it would cost $250 not to get poked in the right eye while metering, the price of a motor winder to keep the meter on with the manual advance lever tucked in.

Actually, I wouldn't ask, since few people knew. I'd just hand them a camera and ask them to look through it so they'd do it without thinking about it. Left-eyed users of rangefinders are also keenly aware of the problem, and get no joy from built-in 1:1 finders.

Lee

BWGirl · Jan 24, 2005

Well, I'm left-handed, definitely right-brained, and right-eyed! It's interesting what you find out in the course of new hobbies. I found out I was right eyed when I did some target shooting with bow & arrow! haha...don't worry....I'm relatively harmless.

Graeme Hird · Jan 24, 2005

Left-eyed, right handed

oriecat · Jan 24, 2005

I shoot with my left eye, but I believe the eye doc told me the right was predominant. I'm just weird.

25asa · Jan 24, 2005

Whoa.
Okay.
Wait a minute.
Gotta get my bearings.
Now why am I doing this? Holding my thumb out lookin' stupid?
My wife comes in and says, "What? You think your thumb is so beautiful?".
Sheesh.
I close left - no change.
I close right and have to re-orient.
So, I guess I'm right eyed. ?

Does this right-eyed bias expose some deep seated psychological trama or what?
Maybe I ought to shoot left eyed for a few weeks just to get in touch with my opposing bilaterally symmetrical creativity zone.

Now my daughter says, "What's with the thumb-up thing?".

Tammyk · Jan 24, 2005

Me too. My left eye is my bad eye, yet it's the one I shoot with. Never been poked with the film advance lever though.

Ailsa · Jan 25, 2005

Left-eyed, right handed.

Andy K · Jan 25, 2005

Right eyed/handed/footed... just to confuse matters... how do you people hold the camera (rf or slr) when shooting portrait? I find it more comfortable with the shutter release at the 'bottom-right' as you look at the back of the camera in portrait orientation. Some say that's a bit cack-handed but I find it awkward reaching 'over the top' with my right hand for the shutter release.

TPPhotog · Jan 25, 2005

BWGirl said:
Well, I'm left-handed, definitely right-brained, and right-eyed! It's interesting what you find out in the course of new hobbies. I found out I was right eyed when I did some target shooting with bow & arrow! haha...don't worry....I'm relatively harmless.

Snap !! I use to shoot target rifle for the county and police (purely paper though, plus a few pistols & revolvers for pleasure shooting), not sure I'm harmless though

Some left eyed right handed rifle shooters use to use a angled tube that fitted on the rear sight, not sure if there's anything similar for an SLR user on the market.

rjs003 · Jan 25, 2005

Left eyed with double vision and right handed. Try this with a split image range finder.
Can't believe my right eye, it lies to me.

rogueish · Jan 25, 2005

Tried your test. Thumb is not over the distant object no matter which eye I close. Does that make me ambi-opticalous? Or does it show my incrdible ability to muck up simple directions?

TPPhotog · Jan 25, 2005

rogueish said:
Tried your test. Thumb is not over the distant object no matter which eye I close. Does that make me ambi-opticalous? Or does it show my incrdible ability to muck up simple directions?

Maybe you chose the wrong distant object, it's supposed to be one that is stood still

Carol · Jan 25, 2005

Definitely left-eyed here. I recently bought a 2nd hand Ricoh and the advance lever has two positions for focussing which is much better. Maybe the big dent in my forehead will start to fill in now.

P.S. I just read this quote from the post above.
""Your first 10,000 photographs are your worst" ... Henri Cartier-Bresson"
What a relief. I was beginning to give up hope of ever taking a reasonable photo. Probably only a few hundred more to go. Sigh!

fingel · Jan 25, 2005

OK, this is weird, I have to reorient when I close either eye. And I can make it work for either eye depending on what thumb I hold up. If I use my right thumb I'm right eyed, but if I hold up my left thumb then I'm left eyed. (or maybe I'm doing it wrong).

I just went back to the how to do this post, and when I hold my thumb out and focus on my thumb, I see two background objects, when I focus on the background object I see two thumbs. So I just have to pick one. Maybe I'm still doing it wrong, or maybe neither one is dominant. I don't know.

Craig · Jan 25, 2005

I'm left eye, right handed as well. At least the SLR's I've shot haven't poked me in the eye, manual wind was Canon AE1-P, and now Nikon F4/F6, neither of which have winding levers. Of course it makes no difference to the 8x10.

David Brown · Jan 25, 2005

Wow. Never thought of it this way.

Always used right eye. My right eye is nearsighted and my left is farsighted. With glasses, everything is OK; without, passable.

Use right eye w/ glasses on all SLR's My point 'n' shoot has a diopter correction built in, and I set it for my right eye w/o glasses. The magnifier in the waist level on my Kowas seems to also work well with my right eye sans glasses.

However, my most recent toy is a Fuji GS645 rangefinder. Since age has allowed me to have just the faintest beginnings of cataract in the right eye, the left eye works muuuuch better with the Fuji's rangefinder. Fortunately, the viewfinder on that machine is in a good place for the left eye.

I learned 35mm with an old Zeiss Ikon that had "blind" scale focusing. You know, that worked, too!

As for the test in the original post, I was left eye the first time, but now that I'm aware of what's happening, I can go either way ...

Cheers y'all.

David

J_Kaye · Jan 25, 2005

I shoot with my left and am right handed. I learned photography with a rangefinder and have never really had a problem poking myself in the eye.
Interestingly enough when I was a soldier I aimed a rifle with my right eye and never had a problem. Perhaps my eyes are ambidextrous. Perhaps I am just weird.

mark · Jan 25, 2005

fingel said:
OK, this is weird, I have to reorient when I close either eye. And I can make it work for either eye depending on what thumb I hold up. If I use my right thumb I'm right eyed, but if I hold up my left thumb then I'm left eyed. (or maybe I'm doing it wrong).

I just went back to the how to do this post, and when I hold my thumb out and focus on my thumb, I see two background objects, when I focus on the background object I see two thumbs. So I just have to pick one. Maybe I'm still doing it wrong, or maybe neither one is dominant. I don't know.

Nope your just screwed up

BarrieB · Jan 25, 2005

I can only 'Wink' by closing my right eye, am right handed, right footed, but hold a bat ( cricket or baseball or Golf Club ) left handed.I focus my L/F with my Left eye.
Cheers Barrie. BTW ALL of my negatives turn out up side down in ALL of my cameras.

Left Eyed Photographers

Thomas Wagner

TPPhotog

Kevin Caulfield

Joe Lipka

papagene

Membership Council

Bruce Osgood

Membership Council

Lee L

BWGirl

Graeme Hird

oriecat

25asa

Tammyk

Ailsa

Andy K

TPPhotog

rjs003

rogueish

TPPhotog

Carol

fingel

Craig

David Brown

J_Kaye

mark

BarrieB

Left Eyed Photographers

Membership Council

Membership Council

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