Scattered Thoughts . . .

W hen I shot these photos below capturing the view through the viewfinders of cameras of two different formats, my purpose was to see if I could capture better images through the viewfinders than I had shown in my previous blog entry.  So, in short, this was initially an exercise in trying to capture better photos shot through a small viewfinder.  After capturing these photos, I noticed something else that I wanted to point out. I should first explain that I had used my cellphone for these photos and it is difficult to hold the cellphone perfectly lined up with a clear view through the rather small viewfinders.  Then, when you touch the screen to capture the photo, the whole cellphone moves ever so slightly causing some motion blur.  It was tough keeping the cellphone lined up perfectly to capture the entire view through each viewfinder. I really can't understand why anyone would want to shoot photos with crappy cellphones and I am reminded of this every single time ...

M y 40 year old medium format film camera had a simple matte focusing screen on it which made focusing a bit difficult.  This matte screen simply showed the scene and you would have to sort of guess what was the best focus.  There was nothing to help you actually see if the image is in perfect focus.  Using only your eyes makes it easy to slightly miss focus especially with older eyes like mine.  I knew I wanted to replace this focusing screen with a better one. The main problem with wanting to replace anything on this camera is that this is a 40 year old film camera that has been out of production for decades.  Finding parts can be difficult.  Regardless, I went on a search for the type of focusing screen I wanted.   I wanted a screen with a split prism in the very center, a micro-prism collar surrounding the split prism, and a matte ground glass field.  These can be difficult to find now but I happened to find one in Japan so I purchased i...