Thumbs up Left Eyed Shooting

S

stevencrichton

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As a leftie and a glasses wearer I'd be interested to know how these are. Do they poke you in the face when the camera is up?

In my SLR days I used to have great problems with Nikons that required the wind lever out for the meter and release making good attempts at converting me into a modern day pirate.

Steven
 
I am right handed and have a right master eye. I shoot left eyed. I was taught this way by my dad. His rational was that you got a better platform across your face this way. I've tried shooting right eyed and it just seems weird to me now.
 
I lost most of my vision in my right eye to a virus when I was 18 so I am a leftie now and have been for many years. That Doesn't bother me as much as my glasses does.
I started wearing glasses about 14 years ago and they are always a pita. With my rangefinders I flip them up on top of my head as my long vision is ok without.
 
I must admit that I had not thought of this potential problem. I used to be a right eye shooter but had to give it up as my right eye was well out of whack and I found my vision sufficiently better with my left eye to justify the change. For me the main consideration was that I preferred to use my right eye if I could because otherwise I smeared nose prints on the LCD. I now had to tolerate that problem but I never considered for a moment that by using my left eye it might put a thumbs-up in direct line with a collision with my other eye.

Some time ago I did actually go searching for a thumbs-up to buy but decided that the near $200 (plus postage) charged on eBay to send one of these to Australia was just too expensive to make it worthwhile (in my view). And I did not like the cheap versions I saw which seemed to be badly made. So instead, on these grounds I bought a leather half case from Mr Zhou. This was and is perfect. The price was better, it looks great and it adds enough grip to make the camera easy to handle and hold. And no risk of poking my right eye out! Although as I said this was not something that occurred to me at the time.
 
My left eye is my dominant eye; it also sees much better than my right eye which has been more affected by macular degeneration. As I've got a large nose with abundant nose oil the LCD is usually smeared with it and I don't care. It's my X100s and I can do with it as I please. Plus nose smears are instantly removable with a swipe of a hanky.

Is a "thumbs up" the same as the thumb rest that fastens into the hot shoe? I've got one of those. It's never been a problem. But then again, my camera is no Nikon.
 
Countless years now of wiping the nose smear off LCD's now.. so it's second nature that play requires a quick pass of the sleeve over the screen :)

Good to hear people aren't having major issues left eyed with the Thumbs-up, I may look into a knock off one.. test for eye removal evil then go for a genuine one, rather than wasting a good whack selling it on instantly second hand. Much like my $100 sling strap I had on my last DSLR!
 
I wear glasses and agree, they can sometimes be a PITA w/ cameras. Fortunately my most used camera is a N8008s, which has great eye relief, so I just leave them on w/ that one. The real issue is that I seldom have my glasses on when outside. It's Florida, and I need my shades on all the time it seems. Since my left eye is a lot stronger than the right w/o glasses, I should try focusing w/ the left one sometime. I'm sure I could get used to that, it will just take time.
 
I've tried with my right, but after I spray painted it when I was 5 in a "helping dad fix his car" accident it's just not up to the job.
 
Abandonned the Nikon FM2n for this reason.
With my other F2's and Nikkkormat, I just push in the wind lever.
With the FM2 ( Nanny State Camera ) this locked the shutter release.
 
I shoot left eyed and, while I don't wear eyeglasses I often wear sunglasses and don't have a problem with a thumb rest with Leica Ms. I don't even notice it.
 
In the end I've actually decided to go with a different route entirely.

A few years ago I used to have a bessa r3a with the trigger winder and the grip A and I remembered that the Grip A was great for me. you rest your 3rd and 4th fingers on itand the thumb on the side of the camera in your left hand. Leaving your index finger free for thew focus tabs and well out of the way of the lens when using wides.

The other thing for me and my left-eye'd-ness it naturally causes me to centre the camera when holding it.

The best things are .. it's about the same price new as the better chinese thumbs up copies .. the hotshoe is left free for finders without having to pay for the even more expensive one... but you can use it on all your cameras! So now I have a 2 point hold on my wee rx100 when I want to shoot video. Or I pop it on my mini novoflex tripod and I have a rifle type stock for video things too.

I really kicked myself for forgetting about it and how good it was ergonomically.

You can still get them here at Robert White
 
To explain the way the grip makes you hold the camera is kinda hard ... so I screwed in a tripod rod to demonstrate. The grip obviously isn't a whole foot long ;)

As you can see the camera is locked firmly in my left palm, I can focus freely, I have saved £70 over CPSE2 and have my hotshoe as a hotshoe still :D

13725741885_8d3fab32cd_b_d.jpg
 
That's the longest thumb I've ever seen!

I'm familiar with the Grip-A. Used to have one on my Bessa R.
 
yeah I just noticed that... the camera sitting over it and the weird bend required to photograph your own hand holding a camera in the air doesn't help. I'm sure victorian "medicine" outlines that with thumbs as long as mine I'm sone sort of social leper.
 
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