BTZS focusing cloth

I read the old thread on the BTZS cloth. I have very bad eyesight and need to change my glasses, take them on and off, under the focusing cloth and use a loupe. Can you get your hands inside of the BTZS cloth?

Jeff, assuming the BTZS is the group in AZ, yes, the cloth is

specifically designed to put your hand up through a velcro opening to

use a loupe... It is a great dark cloth, once you use it, nothing

else will suffice. I use one on 8x10 and 4x5.

Jeff, it's got to be the best thing I've ever found for easing the

pain of constantly changing glasses. Incidentally, I had my oculist

order "flip-up" reading glasses to use with my bi-fokals ($17). I

can now see close enough to focus, and far enough to view the entire

screen to compose. Ahhhh, 'tis wonderful!

I instigated a thread about the new fangled dark cloth last month

after joining the view camera fraternity (albeit with a 'Baby'

Linhof).

Anyway, like many I came to conclusion that the old fashioned horse

blanket could be improved on and being a tight Yorkshireman I also

reckoned that the $50+ asking price for the BTZS could also be

improved on.

In the event I designed my own cloth and had it made up by a friend.

Total cost was less than $12 plus a bottle of wine for the

seamstress. It fits round the camera perfectly, you can put one, both

or no hands inside and for those with leaky bellows also folds over

the camera to shade the dark slide, bellows and lens once the

composition and focus have been sorted.

The basic design can be adapted to suit any camera - if anyone wants

the pattern I will gladly e-mail it to you.

The old "heavy" black Tee shirt works great! Sew some elastic in the

waistband... and voila! Arm holes and all.

I would look into a bright screen... It brightens the viewing at least

2 times and makes it so you almost don't need a dark cloth... Beattie

is a good one as well as a few others.