How to Use the Zone Focusing Option on the TLR (or Virtually any Adjustable Camera)
Most film cameras and/or lenses have some method for determining the depth of field quickly with. Knowing how one works easily translates to other styles of cameras and Scales
As with many cameras, the zone focusing depth-of-field scale is easy to use, once you know how it works. It is really very logical and simple. As you make the setting for f/stop and shutter speed on these two brands of 4x4 TLR's you will view the setting through two small pains one on top of the other just above the lens. Or in some other models on the lens barrel itself or in a pane to the left or right of the viewing lens.
A circular dial is easily accessed by your thumbs on these models. You don't even have to raise your head from the viewfinder. By just glancing slightly forward, you can view all of the settings including the light meter, which may or may not be automatically coupled to the lens settings. And you can also see the dept-of-field marks on top of the viewing lens.
Once the numbers are understood as arranged, determining acceptable focus in feet or meters is easy enough. Looking to the right side of the lens you will note a set of decending numbers, one atop the other. A reverse order of the same scale is evident on the right side. These two scales correspond with two rows of numbers that change with the focus. One set is feet, the other meters. It is a good thing they included feet for us Americans.
Feet and Meters Scales
When I was in the fourth grade at Fox Elementary in Fairbanks, My all-time favorite school teacher Mrs. Kanopka, explained that the USAn was unlike any other country because we use the English system instead of the much more logical and usable metric system. It was imperative she said, that we learn the metric system, which we were working hard at to learn the conversions for, because we would soon move entirely away from inches and feet and so forth. Mrs. Kanopka, good teacher though she was, couldn't forecast the future. I still know my conversions, but America is no closer togoing metric than we ever were.
One f/stop is displayed only once, in the center of the unchanging lens scale. 2.8, is the largest diaphram opening, and will take pictures with the least amount of depth-of-field. Right? It makes good common sense. If you have trouble keepin gthisstraight, just think that when you squint, you can see more clearly; that's exactly whay we squint. When we squint, we are effectively using a smaller aperture setting for our eyes. That's simple enough, isn't it?
Mrs. Kanoka gave me confidence to undertakie reading an understanding the fairly technical Yashica book that initiated me to these basic photographic concepts at this fairly young age, of 9 and 10, while attending her fourth grade class. She always praised me for mky strength. I had a love for the sciences including physics and chemistry. Believe it or not, these were very cool things to be interested in during the beginning of our Space Age. Children could be motivated to do just about anything if it was credibly linked with the Solor System, space travel, and astronauts--including Chuck Yeager and the heros of The Right Stuff, which had not yet been written but which was being lived during the time.
How to Load Film In a TLR Camera
Open the back for film loading by turning the disk on the bottom of the camera. There is also a mount for use with a tripod there or to mount a side-mount flash bracket. Make sure the take-up roll gets started evenly. Wind film to the correct red dot if you know which one to use. It is explained in each manual. Each manual is available somewhere online. You can also use the ruby window on the back of the camera bakc to locate the number one frame (#1). Don't let sunlight shine in through the ruby window and don't keep it open too long. Films are different these days.
All of these cameras are more or less the same. By understanding these concepts you will be able to figure out the workings of all TLR's--I am betting. Ther are litterally hundreds of different makes of TLR vintage cameras. There are just a handful of 4x4 127 TLR's. There is a Minolta 4x4, a Ricoh, a Topcon Primo Junior (also marketed under the American name Sawyer 4x4), The most valuable are the Rollei Models. They are also decidedly the best-made. The Topcon/Sawyer, Ricoh, Minolta models are quite rare. Grab 'em if you get a chance. The Minolta is probably the next highest qualty to the Baby Rollei, with an excellent Rokor lens. All are geting harder to find.
http://notesandnods.typepad.com/photography_for_profit_or/2009/01/read-the-instruction-manual-.html
