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Just had a little moment here looking at this image... I'd forgotten that it in the chimney finder the image is reversed. Dh'o. It's been a while obviously....
Now just go to a view camera and turn yourself upside down
Indeed! And amusingly, when I discovered the joys of flipping up the screen of the CFV back to use it like a waist level finder as I did way back in the day with my old 500 bodies, I became hopelessly confused orienting the camera as the image was not reversed! So yes, while it’s been a while for me as well, these old habits do die hard.
That's the embarrassing thing... I come from 4x5!Now just go to a view camera and turn yourself upside down
View cameras have no mirrors. Waist level finder has one mirror therefore the front to back reversal (left/right), but our lovely DSLRs have a prism, like binoculars.The waist-level view is reversed left-right but not up-down. The view camera is reversed both left-right and up-down. And the dust speck location on the sensor is reversed up-down but not left-right.
Fascinating place, three-dimensions.
It's the dust specks that need some thought. No mirrors, and yet reversal in only one direction. It's the same as sitting inside a camera obscura. The image on the wall is reversed top to bottom, but not left to right. I've written an essay on this called "The Starfish in the Mirror", but I think an abridged version for photography is in order. (Starfish don't have left and right - they have clockwise and counterclockwise.)
Yes, indeed. The interesting question is: why do we think it does? Saying "mirrors reverse front and back" is true, but doesn't explain our almost universal belief that they reverse left and right. I've now wandered too OT even for me, so will start a thread dedicated to mirrors, reversal, sensors, film, and viewfinders. And the culprit - that every rotation of the sphere has a fixed point.
Agreed, but I tell people that if it did indeed reverse left and right, it would also have to do up and down. If you lay on a table your head is still on the same side (I hope).
Not sure about the starfish, but isn’t the reason why the image in the camera obscura is not reversed left to right when viewing it a simple matter of perspective of the viewer? In other words, in this case you are viewing the image projected on the wall whereas in the case of the viewfinder you are in essence viewing from the opposite side? I suspect I must be missing something pretty basic here so look forward to being thoroughly disabused of my (il)logic upon reading your essay, abridged for photographers and lowly experimentalists such as myself.
Matt, perhaps the answer to your question is related to the one I often ask: Why do some people persist in their belief that the vertical sides of buildings converge? (To the extent that they will deliberately introduce convergence into their images to counter the vertical sides their levelled cameras provide, which they insist are unnatural).
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Behind *and* in Front of the Scenes.ALPA really can't be used for many things* : )
hand-held multiple exposures ...*
Phase One IQ3 100MP Achro | alpa-swiss SWA 12 | sk 35mm
.. right!Behind *and* in Front of the Scenes.
