MF noob: WLF has inverted image?

[Roger Cole]

You can drive yourself nutty looking at a photo that has a strong composition, then looking at it in a mirror. It usually falls apart.

Hm. I've never found this to be true at all. For me, if it works one way then it will work just as well the other way. YMMV I suppose.

 

[Dan Daniel]

Hm. I've never found this to be true at all. For me, if it works one way then it will work just as well the other way. YMMV I suppose.

Moving far off topic, long ago was in a photo class and someone showed an image that left people a bit, well, cold, confused. The typical 'uh.... hmmm... I like the doggie!' type of responses. Then someone talked about how they way the dog sat looking one way was wrong to him, and someone else mentioned that she was drawn to the sky then the dog but that she didn't know where to look after that. Someone got up and pointed out how his eye moved aorund the image, and the photographer jumped. She realized why no one really saw the story she thought was obvious in the image. She was from Israel... Who knew that visual narratives used the same rules of eye movement as literary narratives, eh?

I know exactly what you mean, Roger, but then again the viewers often bring their own agendas and habits.

 

[Sirius Glass]

I'm the opposite. I just couldn't get on with the reversed WLF image on my Hasselblad, but found working with the fully inverted image of a LF camera very easy and natural.

I am with you. That is why I use the 45° PME with my Hasselblad.

 

[Pieter12]

I prefer to use a mirror viewfinder with a view camera. When photographing people the upside down thing throws me.

 

[reddesert]

I do exactly the same and concur - I find it an aid to composition.

Wait until you go to a large format view camera, if you ever do, where the image is upside down on the ground glass. Once I adapted to that I find it a huge aid to composition, even more so than the MF WLF, because it's abstracting to a degree and forces you to actually compose and not get so fixated on what you see as the subject that you forget the surrounding area and the actual composition. Most people who stick with LF seem to agree with this, but it's not something everyone ever adapts to.

A common exercise in art class, I think it originally comes from the book "Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain," is to copy a drawing, but do it upside down. You turn the original drawing upside down so you are making a drawing of the literal drawing, rather than your mental model of the subject of the drawing.

 

[Tim Stapp]

Yes, that way I have a more intelligent audience.

I love this! I say this to my wife when she catches me talking to myself. She then leaves me alone for days...

 

[Sirius Glass]

I love this! I say this to my wife when she catches me talking to myself. She then leaves me alone for days...

Is that Heaven or what?

 

[gone]

Hm. I've never found this to be true at all. For me, if it works one way then it will work just as well the other way. YMMV I suppose.

You're lucky Roger, because it's an old art tool that painters and printers have used for eons. It goes for my photographs too. I've had to redo linocuts (where the image on the block will be reversed on the paper) because what I thought was a really strong composition, wasn't. The mirror thing will show how the image could be tweaked to achieve a more balanced composition.

Of course, a mirror image is not an inverted image, it's actually a reversed image from front to back. But my brain reads it in a similar manner as an inverted image, at least in terms of the composition.

 

[Pieter12]

I have no problem composing with a reversed image. It's the reverse movement to compose that throws me.

 

[Sirius Glass]

I have no problem composing with a reversed image. It's the reverse movement to compose that throws me.

Bingo! You broke the code. And that is why I bought the PME prism with the Hasselblad. I have never used the WLF.

 

[eli griggs]

Not for action! For action shots you will need to depend on depth of field as focusing manually will take so long the action will have moved.

Prefocus the zone you want to cover, together with narrow apertures and appropriate shutter speeds.

With the Hasselblad, etc MF cameras and lenses, devices for pre-marking the pre-decided focus positions will make fast work with action shots.

As well as a good sports finder after you've set your camera/lens up.

 

[guangong]

While I have prism finders for my Hasselblad and Rolleiflex, they add a great deal of weight to the camera. Ergonomically, I find the prism finder on the Rollei comfortable to use with the pistol grip.
Usually when using WLF, I hold camera up to my eye for both focusing and exposure, except when attempting to be discreet.

 

[Kodachromeguy]

Using a WLF is a matter of getting used to the right/left inversion. After a while you learn to move the camera in the opposite direction of what you'd think by looking in the WLF. A prism finder eliminates that issue, usually has a bit of magnification and you can add corrective diopters. But it comes at the price of being heavy (quite heavy) and expensive. The WLF will have a pop-up magnifier that gives greater magnification than the prism finder, so it can be more accurate for checking focus. And the greatest advantage of the WLF is since you are not holding the camera up to your eye, you can have eye contact with the subject, something that often leads to better portraits. The depth of field issue has nothing to do with the finder, but the longer focal length of medium-format lenses. Most MF SLR's (including your 6008) have a depth-of-field preview button allowing you to judge that. TLRs do not.

This is an excellent summary.

I have both the waist finder and an older NC-2 prism for my Hasselblad. I tend to use the prism finder when I want a higher viewpoint, close to my eye level.

 

[Vaughn]

I started photography with a WLF on the Rollei (1977). I do not remember ever being confused by things being backwards. To me it was 'normal'. Now I use LF...everything is upside down, but not backwards. No issues with that.