Motor drives, thumbs, and left eye dominance

[David R Munson]

Anyone else here deal with this much? I'm left-eye dominant and I'm so used to shooting with the left eye, that if I actually attempt to shoot with the right it seems totally bizarre and uncomfortable. With manual-advance SLRs, I'm always thumbing myself in the eye, so at this point I've come to just accept using motorized cameras.

I've been toying with the idea of trying to construct a trigger winder for my Nikon F3P, but without access to a workshop that's not going to happen any time soon. There's also the Canon VT I had that I miss like crazy, but that's another story entirely...

So - those of you who are left eye dominant, how do you handle it? Motor drive? Thumb in the eye? Take the camera away from your eye every shot? Call it curiosity.

 

[vrgard]

I just take the camera away from my eye between shots. Don't see it as any big deal and is perfectly consistent with my use of rangefinder cameras which is to take my time to "make" a picture rather than some rapid fire approach to "take" a picture. Sorry, don't mean to be pedantic, but one of the reasons I enjoy photography is the process of slowing down, noticing my surroundings, seeing a possible image, and capturing that image. From that perspective, taking the time to move the camera away from my eye to advance the film is just part of the process.

-Randy

 

[David R Munson]

Slowing down is indeed great, but sometimes when you see it, you want to get it and make a couple small variations in short order, and that's where the motor drive really comes in for me. If I can keep my eye to the viewfinder, the process remains uninterrupted.

 

[hans voralberg]

Buy a M body, contact Tom, get a trigger winder 😛 I suppose that's the best solution really

 

[David R Munson]

Well yes, but that's another topic entirely... 🙂

 

[ClaremontPhoto]

Voigtlanders have trigger winders as an optional add-on.

 

[BillP]

Left-eyed, left-handed. Like Randy, I have just got used to taking the camera away from my eye. It doesn't take long, and I don't move it far, and it has never bothered me enough to worry about a rapidwinder or motordrive or the like.

Horses for courses, I suppose. To each their own.

Regards,

Bill

 

[irq506]

Same here.
I use an M6 and usually hook my knuckle of my thumb into my right eye to give stability, I use a Tom Abrahamson Rapidwinder to advance. I also have a Leica Motor-M which I do the same thumb knuckle thing with.
Hey Id rather use my left eye as best I can and get the shot then my right eye with ease and not get the shot at all..

 

[EcoLeica]

i use a nikon FE which means i have to pull the trigger out a little to activate the battery. Needless to say I had it poking me in the eye all the time so I just worked on it and I cant shoot with my right eye

 

[mcgrattan]

I just take the camera away from my eye. My regular rangefinder has a knob wind rather than a lever wind, anyway. So I have to take it away from my eye to wind-on. When using an SLR I always take it away from my eye.

My Retina IIc has a bottom wind, though. Which is surprisingly good for rapid shooting without taking away from the eye.

I'm not really a huge fan of motorwinds. Several of my cameras have them [built in] but I prefer the lack of noise and choice of when to wind on that you get from a manual wind.

 

[Jan Van Laethem]

I'm left eye dominant too, but I've come so used to it that it doesn't give me any problems. I started with a Nikon F801s with built in motorwind, but much prefer manual wind. With the F3 and FM3a, I have to pull out the wind lever to activate the meter. I have the wind lever close to my right eye while composing and shooting, but it never really gets in the way. I then remove the camera just a little bit from my face to wind on. With the high eyepoint viewfinder of the F3HP, I can still keep track of my subject if I need to. Never missed a shot, but for certain subjects I could see an advantage of adding a motordrive. That would of course make your camera much larger and heavier, which may not always be desirable.

My rangefinder has a knob wind and a small and rather dim viewfinder (Nikon S), which makes the whole shooting process much slower. That's fine with me, as it suits my shooting style.

With time I think you'll get used to it. The idea of adding a trigger winder to the F3 seems very interesting though.