This page needs your experience -- if you have any Lubitel advice you feel like sharing with others then post your words of wisdom here. The information already posted here, has been extracted from the messages of The Lubitel 166 Club.
The contents so far:
How to get your pictures straight: by "chipcurser"
I am assuming that you have this problem only when you are looking through the ground glass. So, here is what I do to keep my pictures square. It may sound strange but I had same problem you did till I started doing this. I hold the camera normally and then I tilt the upper part of my body to the left or right until I get a horizontal or vertical line in my scene parallel with the top or bottom or left or right side of the ground glass and then click. Good luck, and don't through you back out twisting from side to side :-)
Getting the exposure right without a light meter:
by "chipcurser"
You might do a search on the web for "sunny 16" or "exposure guide". The sunny 16 rule is basically that you set the aperture at f-16 and the shutter speed at the closest speed to the film you are using when you are in full sun. So if you are using a film with a speed of 160 ASA then you would set your shutter speed to 125 and your aperture at f-16 for a shot in full sun. You can then adjust the aperture and/or speed for different light situations. When you use a different speed film your starting shutter speed will change to what ever is closest to the ASA of that film and the f-stop will remain at f-16 for a shot in full sun. If you use a film with a speed of 400 ASA then you would start with some other combination like f-22 ar 1/250 and work from there. I used f-22 because that was 1-stop slower than f-16 and 1/250 because that was 1-stop faster than 400+- the two settings would then be close to an exposure of f-16 at 1/400.
by Tommy Poulsen
You probably already found out the Lubitel viewfinder isn't much good, so here are some tips on focusing:
The safe way -- do landscapes, cityscapes, any scape -- just set the distance scale to infinity and click away.
Don't care about the first roll of film -- experiment with different distance settings and motifs. You will soon (practice) be able to judge distances with a fair amount of accuracy.
Use a high diaphragm setting or f-stop (f22). The greater you set the diaphragm the greater depth of field you get. With a large depth of field you are more likely to get a sharp picture, even if your distance is off.
by "jcalvet_bcn"
Hama makes some 40.5 filters. But when I brought one the first thing I did was breaking it and used the ring itself as a prolongation of my cokin filter. Yes ! you will have to search a lot, but cokin makes the 40,5 ring. You can be sure because I've got one in my hand now. Do not forget to put the filter in front of the light meter when measuring the light (or correcting the diaphragm - it's easy to forget.)
Useful thing: When buying computer parts, they used to came (long ago) with some kind of black foam...-now they come in a lousy plastic bag - Keep that foam if you can get some, it's very useful to avoid light leakings, specially when the 6x4.5 adaptor doesn't fit very well...
Light leaks with the 6x4.5 adapter (washer)
by Joseph Watson
I found out that with the 6x4.5 adapter it is the adapter itself that causes the light leak. I put tape on the sides of the adapter and it got rid of the light leaks.
