Diopters and glasses, best practices

[giorgio_piccagli]

Been doing research on the web about eyepiece diopters. I don?t find much information about how

eyeglass wearers then use cameras equipped with eyepiece diopters.

 

If wearing glasses, they need to be flipped up before the camera is brought to the eye. This creates a

motion that can both slow down taking the shot and give away that you are about to take a shot. Is this

true/important in practice, or does the action simply get more natural and speedy with time?

 

And what about the non-aiming eye? It is now deprived of corrected vision, eliminating the advantage of

two-eyed viewing mentioned particularly with the 1:1 viewfinders? Real problem or not?

 

There are glasses, called sewing glasses that allow one to swivel one lens up, while retaining the other one

down. This solves the issue of two-eyed viewing, but not the issue of the telltale raising of the lens over

the framing/focusing eye.

 

I?d be interested in any information from people who wear glasses while using eyepiece diopters on their

cameras about successful strategies/procedures.

[wai_leong_lee]

I use diopter only, that works fine. Why have a diopter + glasses?

[Hector Javkin]

I'm nearsighted, and need glasses for distance vision. I use a diopter adjustment that allows me to see properly with my eyeglasses on. I even got bifocals so that I don't have to take off my glasses at all while doing photography. I use the lower part of the eyeglasses to look at the LCD panels, and the upper part to look through the viewfinder and at whatever I'm photographing.

 

I've gone through the routine of taking my glasses off and putting them on again. It doesn't work for me at all.

[jtdnyc]

As a life-long eyeglass wearer with severe astigmatism, I've tried many different solutions over the past 20+ years of shooting with a Leica. I even went so far as to have a custom-ground astigmatic correction lens fitted into a rotating frame so that I could shoot in landscape and portrait format with my eyeglasses off. (When the problem is astigmatism, the corrective lens must be oriented properly.)

 

Nothing I tried was really satisfactory until I started wearing "progressive" lenses in my eyeglasses, i.e., lenses like bifocals but with a smooth transition from the "far" prescription to the "near" prescription. Now, no viewfinder correction lens is necessary.

 

For me, the combination of progressive eyeglass lenses and a .58 viewfinder has been the best solution. When I need a more magnified view, I simply add the viewfinder magnifier to the system.

 

This approach has the added benefit of letting me see the scene, the viewfinder image and the controls on the camera without fiddling with my eyeglasses.

 

Just to show that I don't rely on Leica for everything, my progressive eyeglass lenses are made by Zeiss. ;-)

[john_newell2]

I am farsighted, so my approach is not perfect, but I gave up on glasses + camera and use diopters only. Part of the problem is bifocals - the wrong part of the lens (for this purpose) is adjusted for near vision. It's not perfect because if I need to read something on the camera or lens, I need the glasses back. However, it works for me.

[jeffpolaski]

Jonathan has a point. I've been wearing progressive lenses for years. The more recent camera body I bought has an adjustable diopter, and I have to remember to keep that at an optimal setting to find the correct focus point in my eyeglass lenses. I've tried using diopters without the eyeglasses, but falling over rocks and walking into trees isn't good for my photo equipment.

[john_gleason1]

I've got to agree with Jonathan and Jeff. I'm quite myopic with lots of astigmatism. But I've been wearing progressive lenses for a long time now, and have had no real problems --- other than occasional scratching of the lens, and even more occasional difficulty seeing all of the viewfinder area. (That latter happens only with some cameras and some pairs of glasses, and it hasn't been a huge problem.)

[john_shriver]

The Leica M finder has an inherent -0.5 diopter. This means that it makes distant objects look closer, corrects a bit for far-sightedness. Objects at infinity will appear to be closer (maybe at the virtual distance of 2 meters, I'm not sure). It's like putting on the glasses of someone who is slightly far-sighted.

 

(Typically SLR viewfinders have an inherent -1.0 diopter, so that the focusing screen appears to be 1 meter away.)

 

If you want to make the finder be neutral, that is if you can focus at all the distances you would take pictures at through the top of your glasses, get the +0.5 diopter correction lens from Leica, and that will result in a neutral 0 diopter system. (Leica correction lenses are marked with their true strength. Those for many SLRs, including Nikon's, are marked with their strength in combination with the -1.0 diopter of the finder. So a Nikon 0 diopter is really a +1.0 lens.)

 

You can preview the effect of the positive diopter correction lenses by trying on "reading glasses" at the drugstore along with the camera. Put them on over your glasses or contacts. They are all marked in diopters. (However, there's no negative diopter glasses there.)

 

Where you get into a no-man's land is when you just don't have enough focusing accommodation in your eyes to focus at all the distances you want to take pictures at through the top of your eyeglasses. For close pictures you might have to use the "close up" part at the bottom of your lenses. Or have to change to stronger glasses when shooting in close quarters, but not as strong as your reading glasses.

 

This is one advantage of an SLR, the focusing image is always at the same virtual distance. Just put on the diopter that lets you focus on the screen through the top of your glasses, and you can focus easily from infinity to one inch. Not so with a rangefinder, as you are truly looking through the viewfinder, not at the focusing screen.

 

However, as Al Kaplan has noted, if you can align the two fuzzy images in the rangefinder, you can focus and shoot. Maybe not as accurately as you would like, but you've got something...

[SCL]

I have astigmatism and wear progressive lenses, and over the years have tried contacts, diopters with no glasses, and the plain old viewfinder with glasses. After much frustration which involved my not shooting RF cameras for 4 years because of the hassle of taking off my glasses to use a diopter, or trying to see with glasses, or using the rf without glasses...just make the images coincident, I arrived at a solution which works for me. I now use my progressive lenses with my RF cameras....seems to work quite well these days...I have .72 and .85 finders. I use the adjustable diopter and no glasses on my Visoflex and my SLRs/DSLR, and on my SL2, although I've tried a diopter, I prefer just the progressive lenses. I think the solution will vary for each individual...whatever is most comfortable and produces the sharpest picture in the shortest amount of time.

[alex_lofquist]

After my eyes went bad due to old age (presbyopia) I pretty much had to relegate my Leicas to the display case. AF was pretty much the only way to go. Even so, with full-frame viewing my glasses were preventing my seeing the whole frame. Changing the eyepiece to the same correction (diopter) as my glasses was the best solution, especially when doing macrophotography. As to what to do with my glasses when viewing through the lens, I just got a clip-on band to wear them around my neck. It makes it easy to switch from camera to regular use of my glasses. I do use rubber eyecups on both of my Nikons to give the best exclusion of ambient light, which can affect the metering and contrast as seen in the eyepiece.

 

If you are considering getting eyepiece lenses and are not sure which correction to get, get a range of them for trial. They are cheap enough, and you may need different powers as you get older.

[dan flanders]

Many years ago I learned the knack of judging the scene before mounting the camera which involved learning the coverage of the various lenses most often selected. Over time the increasing availability of dedicated view finders spoiled me until ultimately cataract removal and corneal implants afforded relatively normal vision, but double vision required heavy prismatic correction in both lenses of my spectacles. Fortunately, little practice was necessary to re-learn the pre-composition technique which has freed me from dependence on a drawer full of view finders and I can once again make images without carrying a bagfull of accessories -- just the bare camera and a couple of selected lenses! The VF is merely an aiming device -- the framing is in the brain!

[roger_dunham]

Keep in mind that the Leica finder is set up for a viewing distance of 2M . To get this right

you need whatever correction is required for you to see at 2M . This is typically not the

same correction you would use for drug store reading glasses. For example , I use a +1.5 to

view my computer screen but find that a +1.0 diopter is best for the M8 viewfinder. Since

the finder is a set at a -0.5 ..I have an effective +0.5 . This of course may not fully correct

your vision or help you avoid the rocks and trees .

[Troll]

Except for the CL and AF-C1, I've never been able to compose through any Leica viefrinder with my specs on. Luckily, my right "shooting" eye focuses properly to infinity.<P>My Leica II rangefinder is straight through (no magnification), and all the Barnack III models have an adjustable diopter. I use a screw-in diopter for my M cameras to zero them.