If any of you caught the Yankee game last night (9/11) on the Yes network at the top of the 9th inning they cut to a photographer that was using a Linhof 4x5 camera.
Of course they made some silly comments but they did show it a few times as he was taking a shot and loading the film and dark slide removal.
One thing that I noticed though was he had what looked to a lense attached to the top of the camera where the sports finder would be about.
It looked like he was using to frame the shot as well as maybe get focal readings from it.
This was all just shown really quick of course between pitches so it was hard to get a good look at anything although I rewound it a few times to slow it down and rewatch on Tivo.
So what would be the purpose of using the lense on top?

Erick

Without having seen it, I can only speculate -- was it, perhaps, a "Multifocus" viewfinder? This was a big, expensive, cylindrical optical finder that approximated the field of view of lenses from 3½ to 12 ins. (I think) in focal length.

It might have been. It was only shown for a about 3 seconds in one shot.
It looked almost like a a nomral lense.
Maybe about 1 1/2 to 2" round with number and markings around the front edge like a lense.
It looked like he moved it to focus in like you would an SLR lense but again it was real quick.

Actually it was a multifocus viewfinder. I just looked one up and that is exactly what it looked like.
I haven't seen one of those used before so it was really odd.
Nice to see someone using that setup at a game.

Indeed, Linhof stuff is attractive. I'm not sure exactly what practical benefit is gained by superseding an open-frame finder with a $1,000+ optical instrument, but the aesthetic impact is spectacular!