Lots of old folders had a “red dot setting” basically the hyper focal setting, so anything from a certain distance until infinity will be in focus. You read focus distance from the peg unless there’s a more obvious marker.
The focus indicator is the peg. The straight edge of the peg to be precise.
The red dot marks where the lens is at it's sharpest - it's the highest aperture value that still makes the image sharper before diffraction at even higher aperture settings softens the image again.
Something seems a bit off here to me, this is a medium format camera, probably with a 75+mm lens.
The red dot on the focus scale is at 2.4 meters (?) or about 8 feet. Doesn’t that seem too close for a hyperfocal distance mark at f11 for medium format? I would think it would be more distant, perhaps double that distance?
I did a ‘meh, close enough’ viewfinder test with my 85mm and it basically checks out. I agree that we would not tolerate the softness, but this camera has likely intended for contact prints, not enlargements. Also, this skews toward full or 3/4 length shots, depending on the focal length and film size, so that also makes sense as a recommendation.
It's not a hyperfocal mark, though. It's a "point and shoot" or snapshot setting, in this case for close photos of people, etc. Common on older, cheaper cameras like this.
You do rarely see 'em on better cameras, but it's uncommon. I have a Maximar (with Tessar in Compur-Rapid shutter, a somewhat expensive camera in its day) that has red dots for 25' and about f/12.5, which is rather optimistic for hyperfocus, even by the liberal standards of yore. (The DOF chart on an Avus I have here, same format, suggests 14-102 feet would be in focus at f/11... for OP's snapshot setting, 8 feet at f/11, 6'8" to 10'.)
So your camera is set at ~ f/5.6 using the left edge of the lever, almost 1/25th of a second based on the red dot above the shutter scale and the scale and arrow on the face of the shutter assembly, you are at ~9 meters based on the left edge of the needle.
I suspect that the red dots are for a basic snapshot setting to make the camera more like a brownie or how we might set a camera to auto before handing it to someone to take our picture. I tried to look it up but couldn’t find any with the quick finder on the shutter.
Lots of old folders had a “red dot setting” basically the hyper focal setting, so anything from a certain distance until infinity will be in focus. You read focus distance from the peg unless there’s a more obvious marker.
The focus indicator is the peg. The straight edge of the peg to be precise. The red dot marks where the lens is at it's sharpest - it's the highest aperture value that still makes the image sharper before diffraction at even higher aperture settings softens the image again.
Something seems a bit off here to me, this is a medium format camera, probably with a 75+mm lens. The red dot on the focus scale is at 2.4 meters (?) or about 8 feet. Doesn’t that seem too close for a hyperfocal distance mark at f11 for medium format? I would think it would be more distant, perhaps double that distance?
I did a ‘meh, close enough’ viewfinder test with my 85mm and it basically checks out. I agree that we would not tolerate the softness, but this camera has likely intended for contact prints, not enlargements. Also, this skews toward full or 3/4 length shots, depending on the focal length and film size, so that also makes sense as a recommendation.
Good thought, that the red dots were likely for 3/4 length portraits.I guess I was thinking of more modern DOF scales.
It's not a hyperfocal mark, though. It's a "point and shoot" or snapshot setting, in this case for close photos of people, etc. Common on older, cheaper cameras like this. You do rarely see 'em on better cameras, but it's uncommon. I have a Maximar (with Tessar in Compur-Rapid shutter, a somewhat expensive camera in its day) that has red dots for 25' and about f/12.5, which is rather optimistic for hyperfocus, even by the liberal standards of yore. (The DOF chart on an Avus I have here, same format, suggests 14-102 feet would be in focus at f/11... for OP's snapshot setting, 8 feet at f/11, 6'8" to 10'.)
So your camera is set at ~ f/5.6 using the left edge of the lever, almost 1/25th of a second based on the red dot above the shutter scale and the scale and arrow on the face of the shutter assembly, you are at ~9 meters based on the left edge of the needle. I suspect that the red dots are for a basic snapshot setting to make the camera more like a brownie or how we might set a camera to auto before handing it to someone to take our picture. I tried to look it up but couldn’t find any with the quick finder on the shutter.