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Roger Swezey

11 Years Ago

Left Handed Camera

I've been threatening to become a serious photographer, but I'm left handed and all cameras seem to be right handed.

Do I have to use this contraption?



Or does anyone out there have a better solution?

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Exakta, beat me to it. Had a few in our vintage camera shop at one time. NICE looking cameras. Actually, a lot of German cameras are/were....

 

Roger Swezey

10 Years Ago

After doing some Googling, there was an Exacta in our house in the 60's. It was the camera my wife, at that time, brought back with her from behind the Iron Curtain..

.It had a phenomenal.lens, but all those knobs and dials to deal with!.

What was considered a major drawback, but to me was perfectly fine was the left handed controls.

What was really impossible to get used to, was not only the upside down image, but the upside down MIRROR image, and the 2 step shutter release.

So candid pictures required guess work and a prayer to come out successfully.

 

Mike Savad

10 Years Ago

an idea... get a helmet and mount a 1/4-20 post on it. screw the camera on that, and use a shutter release to get your shots. if you use a wide angle you can capture the world in an unusual way, mostly people staring a the guy wearing the camera on his head. but it would be different.


---Mike Savad

 

Louise Reeves

10 Years Ago

I'm left handed and never had a problem. That being said, I do hold the lens backwards (to righties, at least) and someone who thought they were "all that" with a camera offered "advice" on how I should be holding the camera. I responded, " I'm a professional and a leftie and this works for me, but thanks." I can't "cup" the lens as it feels like I'm twisting my hand; I hold it like one would hold binoculars.

 

Jani Freimann

10 Years Ago

I'm left-handed and have no problems with cameras. Darts, however, are very difficult to throw right-handed so I borrow my brother's left-handed darts and do much better.

 

Charles Cannone

10 Years Ago

Exacta, I think were left orientated.

 

Jenny Armitage

11 Years Ago

The gentleman in your video only needed his pistol-grip contraption when his right hand was two injured to use. I doubt a pistol grip is anywhere near as stable as two hands close to the body.

 

John Ayo

11 Years Ago

I'm right handed, but the first SLR I ever used was my dad's old Exacta, a VX IIA version 6, IIRC. I believe the shutter release was on the left side on that camera.

Now I use a Pentax k20d with the release & grip on the right.

 

Kylani Arrington

11 Years Ago

Roger,

I'm left handed and I don't have a problem using right-handed cameras. In fact, I prefer it. Having control over the zoom lense feels a lot better in my left hand than my right. All you really need to do with the right hand is holding down the focus and capture buttons. That's honestly about it.

 

David Chance

11 Years Ago

I'm left handed and don't find it difficult using my right hand at all. I even have numbness in my finger tips of my right hand. from a woodworking accident

 

Paul Cowan

11 Years Ago

Yes, I'm left-handed. What nobody has mentioned is that cameras are made for right-eyed people, too, and I am left-eyed (and left-footed, as well, come to that). The right-eyed issue is IMHO bigger than the right-handed issue (though neither of them is very big). They build cameras so that when you hold them against your left eye you tend to have your right thumb sticking into your right eye. The photo in my avatar wasn't taken in a mirror.
In the 50s they made quite a lot of cameras that were either handedness-neutral or were actually left handed and, in the case of the Moskva 5 (and presumably the Super-Ikonta C) left-eyed, with the viewing window set on the right side. I have to admit, though, that - perhaps through familiarity - I like right-eyed cameras because it concentrates my vision entirely on the scene in the viewfinder and having the camera pressed into my face helps with stability.
Of course, we now also have the P&S screen cameras for the under-40s with no vision issues or, possibly, over-40 orang-utans with extraordinarily long arms.

 

Roger Swezey

11 Years Ago

Just now, wondering,

Are there any left handed photographers out there. And do you have to contend with this Right_Handed World in one way or another?

 

Mike Savad

11 Years Ago

you can hold the camera upside down. squeeze with your thumb. maybe you can get a right hand operation, you just need a donor hand.


---Mike Savad

 

Paul Cowan

11 Years Ago

Roger, that SLR will probably have been the Pentacon Six in my avatar. With the waist-level viewer the image is flipped rather than upside down, because there is one mirror involved, For upside down you want a large-format camera ....

 

Tony Murray

11 Years Ago

Just flip it upside down. The view screen is the same.

 

Roger Swezey

11 Years Ago

Peter,

Turning the camera upside down....THAT'S THE TICKET!!!.....I was afraid the image would be upside down on the camera screen...BUT IT AIN'T.

I'm old enough, to have had a top of the line SLR camera that had the image upside down on the viewing screen, when using it right handed.....I can't remember the name, but I know it came from East Germany

 

Jenny Armitage

11 Years Ago

That man is channeling my husband. That's his kind of solution exactly.

Peter's solution number 2 is elegant and simple.

 

Robin Campos

11 Years Ago

Roger, here are a few solutions.

1 Hold the camera backwards and photograph what is behind you with auto on.
2 Turn the camera upside down, a bit of a leaning curve to use the buttons, but the buttons will be on the left.

 

Rich Franco

11 Years Ago

Roger,

Years ago, I had a pistol grip,with a shutter release cable on it, don't know why I had it and probably didn't use it much,but I'm sure their still out there. Either that or save the money, buy a good bottle of wine and go shoot! No more wine-ing!

Rich

 
 

Paul Cowan

11 Years Ago

I don't know why he had such trouble finding a pistol grip http://www.ebay.com/itm/NIKON-F-CAMERA-PISTOL-GRIP-/400177934037
Of course, the cable release won't work on a modern camera

 

Bob Galka

11 Years Ago

This post seems to be 4 days early. ;O)

 

Janine Riley

11 Years Ago

A simple thoughful idea. Would come in Handy . Lol

 

Viktor Savchenko

11 Years Ago

Remote works in all dirrections

 

This discussion is closed.