Could they right the image?

[Prime]

How easy would it be for lens manufacturers to right the image so that we could see things right-side-up on the ground glass?

[Sean]

</span><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td>QUOTE (Prime @ Oct 24 2002, 06:50 PM)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'>How easy would it be for lens manufacturers to right the image so that we could see thing right-side-up on the ground glass?</td></tr></table><span id='postcolor'>
I haven&#39;t gotten into Large Format yet, but from what I hear people learn to see the image right side up. I read about an experiment where some college students were fitted with special glasses. These glasses turned everything upside down (or I guess you could say right side up since our brain is interpreting the original as upside down). Anyway, they could not remove these glasses. After a period of time they all reported that they were now seeing everything right side up&#33; So their brains had learned to re-interpret the image. It must take a lot of focus to learn to do this only when it&#39;s needed.

Isn&#39;t there a back you can place on a large format camera that will re-orientate the image? I guess you could lug one of those around, do the initial composition with it, remove it, then do your fine focusing. They look heavy though.

[Jorge]

To right the image you would probably have to add another set of elements wich would do nothing to improve the image and/or the circle and would only take light away from the projected image. I have one of those right angle viewers for my 4x5 and have not used it once. Once you get used to the reversed image there really is no need to "straighten" it.

[bmac]

To answer your question, yes it could be done, but for me, the upside down image is a great thing&#33; It is one of the many things I enjoy about large format work. It slows me down, and quickly gets me out of the rapid fire motor driven 35mm mindset.

Brian

[BobF]

At first the inverted image of a view camera was something I was able to deal with. Then it became something I got used to and was comfortable with using but I always realized it was inverted and thought of it as such. I thought this was as good as it gets. "Wow I have arrived, I are a LF photographer".

At some later point it became right, or natural, or normal. Whatever you want to call it I no longer noticed the gg image was different from the subject. I don&#39;t even know how long it had been before I noticed that my brain had apparently learned to switch between GG viewing and "reality" viewing but when I finally noticed it I just stood at the camera stunned.

It made me consider how much of what we percieve of the world is in many ways controlled by how our brain has been trained. Is this self induced brain washing? If I can train myself to do this what else is possible? I have come to believe from this and other observations that our reality is far more maleable then we would like to believe.

But I digress from photography and will end up in politics and religion if I don&#39;t stop. So to get back to the initial question, your brain can invert it for you so in the end you don&#39;t need the lens to do it for you.

[Prime]

So, to right the image would be to wrong it.

[Sean]

right

[Robert]

You could add a mirror setup. Isn&#39;t that how the the Graflex SLRs worked?

I think it&#39;s partly what you&#39;re used to. If you&#39;ve used a TLR then being backward isn&#39;t a problem-)) Just need to get used to the upside down stuff.

[David A. Goldfarb]

There are reflex finders, but they can be cumbersome, particularly as format size increases.

The inverted image is something one gets used to. It also makes it easier to see the composition of the image abstractly.

Try this exercise: pick up some albums of the work of your favorite LF photographers and read them upside down, or even better, you might use a mirror to see them upside down and reversed, though this can be a little awkward. I find this particularly interesting with Weston. His forms become much clearer that way. Someone ought to do an upside down exhibit of Weston.

[avandesande]

god forbid my c1 was any heavier. It&#39;s weird, but I am more likely to rember the GG image than the place. Sometimes I go back and am suprised that everthing is backwards(right to left). I am not suprised though that it is not upside down.