Re: focusing loupe and focusing cloth

In a message dated 1/3/02 10:48:32 PM Central Standard Time,
dilcher@hiddenworld.net writes:

<< Anyone have any good / cheap suggestions on how
 I should go about obtaining a focusing loupe and focusing cloth?
 
 I need something that will work reasonable well with
 a 4X5 view camera, but am not interested in spending
 too much, obviously. I have a finney that I am experimenting
 with using for lens as well as pinhole work..
 
 Any tips appreciated,
 Jeff
>>
What I did was, go to a local fabric shop , and searched for black cloth ,
something in a cotton blend ( so it could be washed ) and got double the
amount( reason being one thickness did not screen out the light totally ),
folded it over in half, then sewed seams all along the edges ( I had a
friend do this part) and voila I had a focusing cloth for my 4X5 . I suspect
you could buy a black piece , and a white piece to sew over it , to keep out
the heat while focusing in summers , since then I have purchased a really
nice focusing cloth from the View Camera store in AZ. ..It fits snugly around
my view finder by means of elastic, but the price was about $54 .00 maybe,
cant recall, but it is one that will last and take some abusing over the
years , you could probably sew in elastic to the pieces of cloth you
purchase, too.

At the cheap end of the spectrum , I used to use an Agfa loupe , dunno what
the price is now, (maybe around $6.00-8.00 now,) its power is about 4X as I
recall , maybe 6X , since it is plastic, its not the sharpest, but it works,
also I just bought cheap magnifying glasses to use too, but always seemed to
lose them , so bought the Agfa loupes instead.

Hope this is of help to you .
Received on Fri Jan 4 04:24:18 2002