Left or Right eye shooter?

[softshock]

Is it possible to comfortably shoot with a Leica to your left eye?? It seems like it would be less than ideal to me as the majority of the body would hit your nose etc.
As for my style, I have right eye to finder and left eye open. With the M3's .92 Magnification, there's almost no confusion in sizes.

 

[unixrevolution]

Is it possible to comfortably shoot with a Leica to your left eye?? It seems like it would be less than ideal to me as the majority of the body would hit your nose etc.
As for my style, I have right eye to finder and left eye open. With the M3's .92 Magnification, there's almost no confusion in sizes.

I shoot with my left eye on rangefinders like the Leica, and I don't find it that uncomfortable.

That said, I come from SLRs, where no matter which eye you use, you have to squish your nose against the film door.

 

[gekopaca]

no matter which eye you use, you have to squish your nose against the film door.

... or against the display.
Do you think we can give the police the print of our personal nose, in case some thieves would steal our camera?
It may be a good evidence that it's our camera…🙄

 

[dct]

Right eye too...

My first shots was as child with my still running Ferrania ibis 6/6. I rember... with both eyes changing.

Then I began shooting rifles and I did it by instinct right handed. So aiming with right eye.

😱 Later on I got that crazy APS SLR S-1 from Minolta: The finder is hard left, like an RF. It shoots very well using right eye. So it was still better with my right eye. Until today, even if my left eye has a better optical situation (without glasses).

 

[bgb]

Is it possible to comfortably shoot with a Leica to your left eye?? It seems like it would be less than ideal to me as the majority of the body would hit your nose etc.
As for my style, I have right eye to finder and left eye open. With the M3's .92 Magnification, there's almost no confusion in sizes.

It's possible but not all that great really, I'm getting used to the idea but i still keep putting the camera to the right eye and wondering why i can't see anything!
Now if i could just have the sight in my eye back please i would go back to right eyed shooting and never complain again 🙂

 

[masterkin]

The poll needs a new option.

"Left eye when shooting out. Right eye shooter, with both eyes open, when doing the bathroom mirror shot."

 

[Texsport]

Left eye is dominant and my aiming/shooting eye with right eye open--usually.

Texsport

 

[gekopaca]

And what about the Cyclops?

 

[taskoni]

And what about the Cyclops?

The Cyclops always use an external viewfinder. It happened to be almost in the middle of the camera for that purpose too - you hear people talking about "Cyclops finder"? That must be it.

 

[TaoPhoto]

Mostly I shoot right-eyed, but I wear contacts and occasionally the right one will be a little dry or otherwise compromised, making for less clarity. In those situations, I switch to the left eye to focus, and back to the right to frame. I'm not sure why I can focus in both eyes, but only comfortably frame in the right. The brain is an odd thing indeed.

 

[srtiwari]

I would like to shoot with my right eye, with both eyes open, but have to use the left eye- with my nose scrunched up against the body of the camera. ( I am left eyed). I have just bought a 1.4 magnifier, and plan to see what it will be like on the M9. I hate to have my nose rub up against the LCD all the time !

 

[zauhar]

Right eye with my m3, which has close to unit magnification, and which has viewfinder far to the left so that my left eye is free.

I am not sure of the magnification on my canon 7, but it is not comfortable to look with both eyes. I keep both eyes open but shoot with the left (my right eye is pretty much blocked).

Randy

 

[starless]

2 reasons why you might want to use your right eye:

- You can always open the left eye and keep an eye of what's happening without lowering the camera

- Not hiding your face behind the camera makes you look less threatening (if you are doing street)

 

[blindrobert]

wanna hear something awesome? My left eye is a glass eye! (So I use my right eye). It's a sad story involving a paperclip and a rubber band in high school.

 

[yee]

Pre-M, left eye. Now right eyed. The M system seems better suited for right eyed viewing hence I trained myself for the switch. It took about a month of daily use and now it's automatic... The thinking here is to present oneself more to the human subject to relieve tension, and to use both eyes open as much as possible for comfort.

 

[rogerzilla]

I'm currently right eyed but will have to become left eyed for a while. I have Fuchs' dystrophy (in the morning, it's like looking at everything through a hazed-up Leitz Summar) and the right eye is worse. It will need a corneal graft before the left one; it can take 18 months to get decent vision back after a corneal graft. Obviously they won't do the left one until the right one is good again.

One thing I never realised is that the cornea of the eye does nearly all the focusing of light onto the retina; the actual lens of the eye is only to adjust for distance. Fuchs' causes light-scattering lumps on the back of the cornea, thickens it and eventually causes it to cloud up with water, none of which do much for flare!

 

[rogerzilla]

wanna hear something awesome? My left eye is a glass eye! (So I use my right eye). It's a sad story involving a paperclip and a rubber band in high school.

We were more responsible at my school. We aimed for the legs 😀

 

[ssmc]

While I voted "right eye open, left eye closed", I open my left eye if the VF (or SLR/lens combo) is close to 1:1 magnification - I find it helps especially in dim lighting to be able to match the view from both eyes (which seems possible even up to about a 10-15% difference in magnification) as subtle difference in sharpness are much more obvious than using one eye alone.

 

[siracusa]

Like gruyk12 I started as a right eye shooter but recently switched to left. Nose definitely gets in the way against camera body!

 

[Toccata]

You missed a category or two.

I'm left eye dominant, but I shoot an slr left eyed and a rf right eyed.

If I shoot my barnack right eyed I can keep the camera steady and ready to shoot when advancing film etc, whereas this is impossible left eyed.