How are people coping with aging eyesight (presbyopia)?

[clementyonkers]

<p>In my mid-forties, my eyesight started deteriorating. First it was simply fatigue issues -I'd be fine for a while, but after a few hours I would have serious issues focusing manually. Then I started using readers to help see up-close. Now, only five years later, I've had to up my reading glasses strength twice in the last year, and my distant vision is starting become an issue. My camera's diopter adjustment is maxed out!<br>

I'm becoming concerned about my effectiveness as a photographer as my vision gets worse and my ability to be sure of critical focus when teaching or on assignment.<br>

I'm quite sure that I am not the only photographer to experience this. Does anyone have any suggestions for how to deal with this issue, while continuing to work and feel confident about the images he/she s taking?<br>

thanks,<br />Clement</p>

[richard_miller5]

It only gets worse, wait till you start getting the little tremors that makes it hard to hold your camera still. Keep increasing

the shutter speed I guess

[spanky]

<p>I'm in my mid forties now and sometimes I have trouble making sure the image on my ground glass is focused as sharp as possible. I have a diagonal split but it's in the center of the glass and rarely are my subjects dead center. I just try to make do. I do know there are eye piece adapters that screw onto the finder that are adjusted for vision correction, at least for the manual focus film cameras I use. </p>

[Ed_Ingold]

<p>Diopter maxed out? If possible, wear your reading glasses when using the camera. The diopter setting should be approximately neutral, or at least have enough range to make a final correction. You can also purchase corrective eyepiece lenses for many cameras (e.g., Hasselblad, Leica and Nikon) which will let you see without wearing glasses, along with fine adjustments in range of the diopter setting. Professional (single digit) Nikons and some others have plenty of eye relief, so the edges of the frame are visible while wearing glasses.</p>

<p>I wear my prescription glasses for most cameras, except a Leica. The added eye relief distance makes it impossible to see all of the widest frame lines, 28mm or even 35mm. Leica M cameras do not have an adjustable diopter, so I must use a corrective eyepiece. The downside of using a corrective eyepiece is that others can't use the camera well unless they have a similar refraction prescription. The positive side is my kids (now adults) don't ask to borrow these cameras.</p>

[Hector Javkin]

<p>I'm in my sixties. I wear bifocals for photography, now almost exclusively with Nikons. I have the camera's diopter adjusted so I can use the viewfinder with my distance (upper) correction, so I can look away from the camera and see what I am shooting. I use the reading (lower) correction to look at the camera's controls and screen.<br>

<br />For focusing, I now rely on autofocus (when things are moving) or live view (when they are not).</p>

[Spearhead]

<blockquote>

<p>My camera's diopter adjustment is maxed out!</p>

</blockquote>

<p> <br>

You don't say what camera you have so I don't know if this will help. At least for major manufacturer DSLRs, there are changeable diopter lenses. You get quite a bit of additional range with a different lens. For example, if your camera can go to +2 by adjustment, if you swap out the lens for a +2, you can now use the adjustment to go to +4.</p>

[colin carron]

<p>Once one is over 40 eyesight tends to go downhill at gathering speed. Mine is poor for several reasons and has been since my 20's but thankfully it seems to have plateau'd recently.. I regard it as yet another challenge to be overcome and am very grateful for autofocus. :-)</p>

[david_henderson]

<p>I have a range of eye issues but maybe I'm fortunate to have one eye very short-sighted so I can see to focus manually via Live View at 5 and 10x magnification, though its certainly not getting easier. Otherwise , when not able to use a tripod its down to the autofocus and often giving a bit smaller aperture than I really need to take advantage of the increased dof.<br>

Actually I'm worse at spotting defects than focussing - like water droplets for example both before I shoot and when reviewing /correcting afterwards.</p>

[jordan2240]

<p>I saw a documentary once about a blind photographer, so all is not lost.</p>

<p>I wear readers, but the vision in my dominate eye (the right) is still good enough to focus without glasses, though I do rely heavily on auto focus. The diopter adjustment will have one setting for you that is best for your vision, so even if a little fuzzy, it will be the least fuzzy setting. I would say you just have to determine what that is and go with it. Perhaps the image will never look to be fully in focus to you through the viewfinder, but that doesn't mean it's not in focus. Basically, I think you just have to learn what your own variant is.</p>

[Monophoto]

<p>Yeah - getting old ain't for sissies!</p>

<p>I was heavily into large format photography and doing my own darkroom work when I experienced a detached retina. While it was possible to correct the problem anatomically, I was left with severely compromised vision in one eye. I can still see, read, watch TV and drive, but my close-range depth perception is trashed (making it exciting to pour a glass of wine). More importantly, it became very difficult for me to function with only a safelight.</p>

<p>My solution was to abandon darkroom work (and large format). I bought a DSLR with autofocus and simply switched to other forms of photography. I find that my photographic vision (the ability to see potential photographs) wasn't impaired - just the ability to translate that initial vision into a final image in the darkroom. I'm making more color images than before, but I do continue to desaturate images to monochrome when that rings my creative bell.</p>

<p>I think the point is that after nearly 40 years in photography, you really can't just walk away. Instead, you have to find other ways to exercise your photographic vision.</p>

<p>Oh, and since I had more time on my hands, I took up woodturning.</p>

[Jochen_S]

<p>Let your optometrist dabble with dummy glasses between your camera(s) & you, get fitting eyepiece correction lenses. Don't worry too much! - There are professionals using MILCs with EVFs and you can always put a linen tester into the corners of your ground glass for critical focusing. If manual SLRs are no longer for you: try AF or RFs. - But keep in touch with your eye doctor.<br>

Worst thing about Presbyopia: You have to juggle a few pairs of glasses or rely on other senses than vision for what you are doing while wearing the wrong ones.</p>

[Ed_Ingold]

<blockquote>

<p>Yeah - getting old ain't for sissies!</p>

</blockquote>

<p>It certainly beats the alternatives.</p>

<p>Manual focusing is like riding a bicycle - you remember the basics but do a lot of wobbling after a long hiatus. Last summer I reverted to manual focus almost exclusively. I still use my Nikon gear, but prefer a Leica and Sony A7 for most tasks. It took weeks before I could use the rangefinder consistently and accurately. A corrective eyepiece helped a lot, since with glasses you tend to get double refraction, so the rangefinder never seems to line up (i.e., "pop"). For a simple ground glass, like an Hasselblad or Rollei, concentrate on the grid marks, or even the Fresnel lines. That locks your eye on to the focal plane while you search for the sharpest focus of the image. Otherwise you see through the ground glass, and try to focus on a virtual image.</p>

[Dieter Schaefer]

<blockquote>

<p>The downside of using a corrective eyepiece is that others can't use the camera well unless they have a similar refraction prescription.</p>

</blockquote>

<p>The much bigger one for me when using corrective eyepieces was the need to take my glasses off when looking through the viewfinder and then back on when I am done. Got old very fast! So old in fact that I only purchased a corrective eyepiece with my first camera and stopped using it after a couple of weeks.</p>

<p>The other issue with corrective eyepieces is - unless you have them custom-made - that they don't correct for astigmatism.</p>

<p>A few years ago, I had to switch from single focus lenses to progressive ones. While it improved my ability to manual focus a DSLR (which have focusing screens not optimized for manual focusing), I find it much easier with the magnification aids of an EVF.</p>

<blockquote>

 

</blockquote>

[SCL]

<p>With severely failing eyesight, I share your sympathies. Over the years I've tried almost everything, including giving up for a couple of years using anything which wasn't autofocus. Modern bodies usually have built-in diopter adjustments, which helps. However, about 2 years ago I returned to older manual focus cameras, and just tweak things as best as I can. I wear progressive lenses, so there is sometimes leeway in head movement or eyeglasses resting higher or lower on my nose to get best focus. Sometimes a slight diopter helps, but many of my older rangefinder bodies don't have a way to attach diopters, and I've tried "cutting & pasting" from the junk box...but they usually don't last for long. I basically just live with it, and am happy that I can still see well enough to drive, watch TV, and read my computer screen.</p>

[Spearhead]

<blockquote>

<p> The downside of using a corrective eyepiece is that others can't use the camera well unless they have a similar refraction prescription.</p>

</blockquote>

<p> <br>

This isn't true. If someone needs zero correction and you have a +2 diopter, zero correction is still available in cameras with variable correction since it is always at least +2 to -2. With the +2 diopter, you end up with 0 to +4. With +1, you have -1 to +3. This suits plenty of people and doesn't require a prescription of any sort.<br>

<br />In addition, the simple solution is not to let others use your camera. For casual shooters, maybe that's common but nobody uses my cameras. I can't really afford it given what they get used for. Your situation is obviously different.</p>

[mukul_dube]

<p>I had enormous trouble when cataracts were developing in my eyes. I used a special pair of glasses with cameras, with the right (finder) eye fitted with a lens of the strength needed for focussing and the left with my reading prescription. A "diopter" would not have done as the lenses had to be frequently replaced owing to rapid change in vision. Things became much better after cataract surgery. With film cameras I used "diopters", and my digitals have adequate adjustment.</p>

[JDMvW]

<p>Like others, I went from short-sighted to far-sighted. Had to get bifocals when my arms became too short to read text.<br>

My family also has a long history of glaucoma, fortunately easily fixed these days for most of us.</p>

<p>But then I developed cataracts, and when I came out of the lens-replacement process, I had regained better than 20/20 vision, and even had special lenses that allow me (up rather close) to read without any glasses at all.<br>

The result for the last several years is that I now don't absolutely need glasses, though for mid distances I still use 'granny' specs.</p>

 

[Ed_Ingold]

<p>I can use my Nikon DSLRs with or without my glasses, and without a corrective eyepiece per se. However, Leica has not caught on to niceties, like adjustable diopter settings, and I can't see the 28mm and 35mm frames when wearing glasses. My Hasselblad finders are not adjustable, but have a rubber eyecup and ample eye relief for use with glasses.</p>

<p>The only people I share cameras with are my sons and grandsons. With the Nikon, we simply crank the diopter setting to whatever works. The Leica is basically unuseable for them, because of the corrective eyepiece and even more so that it is an "old fashioned" camera that doesn't do anything for you. They're not begging to use the Hasselblad either.</p>

<p>I found out, the hard way, that my M2 and M3 have a hard metal bushing on the viewfinder, which scratches eyeglasses in short order. The M9 and corrective eyepiece are coated with rubber, which has been totally forgiving so far.</p>

[ljwest]

<p>I was nearsighted for years, wearing glasses with a rather mild prescription. It's still rather mild, but at 53, the other end of the scale has started to become affected. About 9 years ago, I got a prescription for bifocals (the normal kind).</p>

<p>When I decided to become a more active photographer, about 5 years ago, I decided that for most outings, I'd wear contact lenses. My eye doctor and I eventually settled on a daily wear type. they really help me with the distant vision. I have a very hard time using glasses to look through a viewfinder.</p>

<p>But, that doesn't solve the other side, where I now need reading glasses when wearing my contacts! But I find that the combination of readers and contacts works for me.</p>

[chris_waller]

<p>I need +1.5 dioptre ready-readers for general work and +2 for reading. For close inspection of negs etc. I use +3.5 dioptres.<br>

Since I can no longer get eyepiece correction lenses for my Canon F1s, I cannot do street photography or anything that needs fast focussing, so I now shoot mainly medium format (Mamiya TLRs) and wear +2 ready-readers to focus. I did buy a couple of +1 eyepiece correction lenses for my Nikon 35mm cameras but I still find it difficult to focus accurately and quickly. So now I shoot mainly static subject matter, that is, which moves no faster than I do.</p>

[GerrySiegel]

I have learned to trust the little green circle in my autofocus camera. A big help and almost never fails me. Consult an opthalmologist who is also a photo hobbyist. Someone who is a kindred spirit like the eye doctor I go to.

[hjoseph7]

<p>I bought a pair of eye-glass chain holders so I can remove my eye glasses when taking pictures. I use to set the diopter on the camera to match my eyeglasses, but constantly pressing the camera against my aluminum framed eyeglasses, caused the frame to crack in half.</p>

<p>I went through 2 frames like this and said enough, is enough. Now I set the diopter on the camera to match my eyes not my glasses, so I remove my glasses then I take the picture. Good thing I'm using AF...</p>

[bob_bill]

<p>At 20/1200, I shoot like I see, soft. I think that's the reason for my attraction to that style. Contacts correct to 20/20 but have mono vision with right eye set for reading working well with it in the view finder and great reading menus in dark restaurants. </p>

[Tim_Lookingbill]

<p>At 55 I have vision problems as well but only when focusing within arm's reach, no problems with distance. I'm having to use cheap reading glasses as I type this response sitting about 18in. from my computer screen. 1.5 to 2 power mag glass is all I need. They're useless viewing through my DSLR's viewfinder, but for some reason everything looks sharp.</p>

<p>But I don't rely on my viewfinder anyway checking for sharp focus. I just set my camera's sharpness setting to max, use auto focus having it assigned to the OK button separate from shutter and after each shot I zoom in on the LCD to check sharp edges. I have the zoom level at 12x which is the maximum. It's been working pretty good going on 8 years.</p>

<p>Most of my shots are sharp even hand held at 1/8's shutter speed with Shake Reduction on. Camera's LCD zoom feature has been an indispensable tool, but it does tend to ware out the batteries quicker. I can get about 200 flashless shutter releases working this way on 4 AA Eneloop rechargeables before I get a depleted battery warning.</p>

[clementyonkers]

<p>Thanks for all of the great responses, I can see that I am certainly not alone. I'm still fine with the 4x5 view camera as I tend to work slowly and with a loupe. <br /><br />In the studio I have started shooting tethered so that I can check the focus on a screen big enough to be critical of the fine details. I can see this might become the norm from here on out. It does appear that I will now have to give up most of my beloved manual focus lenses on the DSLR. </p>