rangefinder and glasses

[nikarlo]

I wear glasses and for this I have difficulty frame with the
rangefinders. I don't succeed in entirely seeing the external frame
because the focus remains too much next to the camera and glasses
increase the distance between camera to me. All of this happens both
with my kiev4s and also with the leica m6ttl(x0.75).
I would prefer to not put correction because I like to shot with two
eyes.
For this I would like to know if it were possible to get further the
eyepoint to comfortably frame to greater distance.
Do you have some idea?
Regards,
Carlo Nicolucci.

 

[Solinar]

Carlo, that is a million dollar question. I haven't found the perfect solution on the wide end, but my 1:1 bright-line finders allow for shooting with both eyes open and allow me to quickly compose with a couple of older IIIf's.

Does anyone have any recommendations for 35mm bright-line viewfinder?

 

[bmattock]

I wear glasses and I have not noticed a problem with rangefinders in general. I have noticed that telescopes and binoculars often give me fits, but not rangefinders (or SLRs).

Best Regards,

Bill Mattocks

 

[kiev4a]

The Turret accessory finder works pretty well if you put rubber around trhe eyepiece to keep from scratching your glasses. The Russian cameras destroyed one set of plastic lenses for me.

 

[aizan]

All of this happens both with my kiev4s and also with the leica m6ttl(x0.75).

i'm guessing that should be .85x. you can't increase eye relief without lowering magnification, and there are no 1:1 35mm accessory viewfinders. you could learn to estimate coverage, or just accept the one-eyed use of accessory viewfinders or lower magnification bodies.

 

[bmattock]

One cure for folks with glasses.

Go to your local discount store, where they sell cheap reading glasses. Find a pair that suit your vision.
Now cut a piece out of the center to fit tightly in the viewfinder window.
This will give you the correct diopter correction and save your glasses.

Only if you're far-sighted. I'm near-sighted. Although I am beginning to exhibit signs of far-sightedness, even the weakest non-prescription reading glasses are too strong for me - and don't help with the near-sightedness anyway.

My poor old mom is near-sighted. When I was a young Marine, I gave her a camera as a gift - an SLR. She insisted on using it with her glasses off. Every photo she took was out-of-focus. Looked great to her when she took it, though!

Best Regards,

Bill Mattocks

 

[dmr]

My poor old mom is near-sighted. When I was a young Marine, I gave her a camera as a gift - an SLR. She insisted on using it with her glasses off. Every photo she took was out-of-focus. Looked great to her when she took it, though!

I'm a nearsighted reluctant long-time member of the 4-eye club. I often shoot without glasses and never had a hard time focusing the SLR or the rangefinder accurately without glasses. I'll do it with glasses too, and yes, it's awkward but not enough to take them off in most cases.

I've never had a case where I've appeared to have good focus on the SLR screen but bad focus on the photo itself.

 

[bmattock]

Try a plastic magnifiying glass lens. Like one of those cheap ones to help remove splinters.

Lenses that magnify are for far-sightedness. Won't do a thing for my near-sightedness, no matter what it is. They're just the opposite of what I need to see, and so make the situation worse.

In any case, I've never had that often-reported problem of not being able to see through a viewfinder or scratching my glasses lenses. I'm just lucky with that, I guess.

I've tried that soft-rubber eyecup thing - ended up getting rid of it. Could not stand it. I've also tried the magnifying focus eyepiece adapter that Canon, et al, used to sell - don't do a thing for me.

I tried the 'diopter' adjustment on my Zorki 4K - the only camera I've ever owned that actually had such a thing. It was kinda cool - at the extreme edge of the adjustment, I could just about bring things into focus without my glasses on - not quite, but close. In any case, however - I can't stand to have my glasses off - I actually get dizzy if I take them off - I need them to see at all, period. Can't even walk to another room without them. So the 'diopter' adjustment doesn't make much sense to me. Take glasses off - focus - take photo - put glasses back on. Why? I can focus just fine with my glasses on.

When I was in the military, I had a roommate who thought it was amusing to hide my glasses in plain sight (for him) while I was sleeping. He'd laugh while I tore the room apart, stumbling and cursing and not able to find my glasses that he had left on top of the TV or something, where everyone else could see them easily. Oh, hahaha. Very funny.

Oh well, just my story.

Best Regards,

Bill Mattocks

 

[bmattock]

I'm a nearsighted reluctant long-time member of the 4-eye club. I often shoot without glasses and never had a hard time focusing the SLR or the rangefinder accurately without glasses. I'll do it with glasses too, and yes, it's awkward but not enough to take them off in most cases.

I've never had a case where I've appeared to have good focus on the SLR screen but bad focus on the photo itself.

I can't say what my mom 'saw' through the lens. I do know that she refused to use the camera with her glasses on (for whatever reason), and her photos were ALL out of focus, and you could see her screwing the focus adjustment back and forth, so she obviously thought she was doing something useful. Pity not one photo she took was ever in focus, until the age of AF.

Best Regards,

Bill Mattocks

 

[Kin Lau]

I've been wearing glasses since kindergarden (apparently, my mother was told when I was _born_ that I was shortsighted) with myopia and astigmatism, so I have to shoot with my glasses on. There's a few (maybe all) RF's where I can't see the _entire_ frame, but that has not bothered me and my glasses aren't scratched either.

Framing accuracy with RFs is a bit of a joke anyhow. According to Cameraquest, your field of view increases as you focus further away. So in other words, don't worry about it.

 

[Nick R.]

Because I take my glasses off to focus but then can't see any of the settings on the camera, I was thinking of wearing one contact in my left eye to read the camera settings and going without a contact in my dominant right eye. I can then use my right eye to compose the scene, focus, see where I'm going. Has anyone tried monovision?

 

[ent2b]

Monovision gives me a headache. I personally would not recommend it.

 

[aizan]

i had to bear monovision one time i lost a contact. in my case, i didn't get a headache. try it if you already have contacts.

 

[Doug]

After cataract surgery in both eyes I have comfortable reading focus in one eye and good distance vision in the other. Delightful situation, as I don't really need my glasses any more and seldom wear them except for night driving.

 

[GeneW]

Because I take my glasses off to focus but then can't see any of the settings on the camera, I was thinking of wearing one contact in my left eye to read the camera settings and going without a contact in my dominant right eye. I can then use my right eye to compose the scene, focus, see where I'm going. Has anyone tried monovision?

I shoot in a similar style, preferring to take my glasses off when shooting. I've been experimenting with one of those really small pairs of cheap drugstore reading glasses. I can push them toward the end of my (long) nose and sight over the top of them when I'm shooting, then tip my head back and look through the reading glasses to see the settings. It works fairly well. I'm thinking of getting glasses straps and letting the reading glasses dangle around my neck and just popping them on when I need to adjust something on the cam.

Gene

 

[Nick R.]

After cataract surgery in both eyes I have comfortable reading focus in one eye and good distance vision in the other. Delightful situation, as I don't really need my glasses any more and seldom wear them except for night driving.

Yes, this is the kind of effect I'm looking to achieve with a contact lens.

They also sell progressive style contacts which act like bifocals. They can be worn in both eyes and not present the problems of monovision, like headaches and poor depth perception. However, they are expensive, ~$300 US. Gene's idea sounds like a good work around, but to be free of glasses when shooting would really be great.