Panoramic viewfinder mask for fuji 6x9?

[roy1]

Just wondering...<br> When shooting with panoramics in mind using the

fuji 6x9's (in particular GSW III). Is there any tool/trick to use so

that you can kindda see a panoramic in the viewfinder? or do you just

train yourself to see that way?

[allan_jamieson2]

Hi Roy, I can't think why you would need a mask/tool or trick to take panoramics with a GSW690. I've got one myself and have taken many photographs with it which could easily be cropped and printed in a panoramic style. With its fixed 65mm wide angle lens, the chances are that you will find that you can crop quite heavily into most images and make your prints as panoramic as you like, whether you take the top, middle or bottom section of any particular image. With cameras like the Xpan, you are in effect only getting the middle section of what the lens is actually "seeing", it's nice to be able to choose how much exactly you are going to crop out. The viewfinder is already quite small being a rangefinder, so putting any extra lines/marks on it to indicate a panoramic format would make life that bit more difficult. As for seeing that way, you should be able to develop pretty fast a good appreciation of what will make a good panoramic image; that's the most important bit in photography, finding your own style, just be natural, take the pictures that you want to take and see how they turn out. I don't have a specialised panoramic camera myself, but I have often noticed scenes where I could have used just such a camera to good effect with scenes which were much wider than I could have taken on my Fuji. In that situation I take the best possible picture that I can with the camera equipment that I have. However, using a GSW/GW 690 is a very cost effective way of getting a very wide image that you can make panoramic prints from, which are much wider than the likes of a 6 x 7cm or Xpan camera, without the cost and bulk of 6 x 12 or 6 x 17 cm medium format cameras. I'll just finish with another request for a 6 x 12cm version of a Fuji GSW, that would be a great camera to have, even with a fixed lens.

[roy1]

Thank you very much for your input Allan. I was just curious :)