This may sound ignorant, but all of my Speed Graphics have side-mounted Rangefinders and I find it very difficult to look through them, especially with glasses. It is so awkward. Any tips?

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On 2005-06-04 18:23, blaised wrote: This may sound ignorant, but all of my Speed Graphics have side-mounted Rangefinders and I find it very difficult to look through them, especially with glasses. It is so awkward. Any tips?

Hi...Don't know if you have ever seen a Kalart Focuscope but here's an ad for one that is on this site...

http://www.graflex.org/speed-graphic/kalart-focuscope.html

Some of these were made as just rigid hollow tubes with no glass and no magnification. Try to avoid these types as you stand a good chance of getting an eye poked from sudden & unintentional camera movement.

You should look for the type of focuscope that "telescopes" as pictured in the old advertisement that I linked to above. This style has glass in it which magnifies the split images that are seen through the rangefinder. These simply screw into the bezel of the small RF window and do aid somewhat, probably as much as possible, in focusing.

Hope this helps,
Jack.

<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: Jack5541 on 2005-06-04 19:01 ]</font>

The telescoping version shown above does work ok, but there was also a later version produced that has a larger rubber eye cup (part # 3055 Graphic Rangescope), and i find i prefer these type, and if you can find one, they do interchange between my various Kalart and top RF's...
I find that wearing a ball cap or rimmed hat for shade also helps a little, at least in the daylight hours.
Stephen