Through The Viewfinder

Photographers, here is a technique that will give you a chance to make fun and unique digital images using that old film camera that has been unused for years. It is popularly known as TtV (Through the Viewfinder). You will need an old twin lens camera with a large viewfinder on top.

This is a TtV photo. I cropped the image to frame it with a little bit of the camera around the viewfinder. Most images I have seen from other photographers have a black border around the viewfinder, but that is personal preference.




The technique is very simple. Put the twin lens camera on a tripod, point it at the subject (which will be reversed in the viewfinder) and photograph it from above with your digital camera.

Focusing can be tricky. The image in the viewfinder probably won't be very sharp, and you will need to chose between focusing on the camera or on the image. Stop down to get greater depth of field.

This Kodak Duaflex camera was used for these photos. The camera was given to me by an old friend, and a very fine photographer, Barry Bruce, who passed away in his 90's a few years ago. Our Sharp Shooters Camera Club once had a meeting that featured a CD of his amazing images.

It was nice to put Barry's old camera back to work.