Your camera can also be a waist-level camera
Compose for the output format
What you do today is compose on your sensor's format, then crop to your intended output format. With zeta9.de you flip the sequence: you compose on the output format and for it. You crop to it later. Same shooting, same cropping — but now you compose for the crop, for what you want to show on your medium, and everything fits exactly the moment you take the picture. Ten aspect ratios per camera brand, magnetically swappable in seconds.
A line is not a border
But my screen already draws the box. It does, and that box is a shape, a rectangle painted on a flat pane: nothing behind it, nothing in front, nothing covered. No information spatially separated. Your eyes are given no depth to work with, no covering of what the output will not show anyway, so nothing is separated for you. With a drawn frame the picture is extra work; with zeta9.de it is only the perceived picture, the one you are concentrating on. Give that frame depth — a tunnel, a real edge, a surround that covers the rest — and the separating never has to happen at all. Only the picture, your picture.
How it works
Three parts. The zeta9.de carrier mounts on your camera's hot shoe. A small smartphone sits snug in that cradle and runs your camera maker's own Android app, for — Canon, Leica, Sony, Nikon and Ricoh. The camera sends its live image to the phone. Then you put the top on, the magnetic aspect-ratio attachment, and compose for your intended output.
The top snaps onto the carrier. Swap it and the frame changes. Need to reach the phone — take the top off, work the phone, put it back on.
The phone is a Soyes XS19Pro, the smallest Android 12 phone made today. That is our XS (very small) variant: no other phone is both small and powerful enough. You buy it separately. Where, is directly below this paragraph — our manufacturer partnership gets you 5% off and us a small commission:
Soyes XS19Pro — direct from the manufacturer
The zeta9.de viewfinder – XS-G1 (very small, generation 1) – uses the Soyes XS19Pro as its display.
We work directly with AIPHOR, the manufacturer. Order through our partner link for 5% off the regular price and a small commission for us, with worldwide shipping and delivery in 1-2 weeks, direct from the factory.
zeta9.de the evolution of the waist-level viewfinder
We took the classic waist-level viewfinder principles and reimagined them with the technology of today.
- The image is not reversed.
- You don't need a second camera.
- You can print directly in the field.
- You can screen-record your photography session as video through the camera lens.
- You compose in black and white or in colour only changing the display settings, not the camera settings.
Frame your vision
And then we added something completely new — the possibility to compose with the intent for the output. Choose your format from our magnetically swappable tops.
- You want to print on DIN A3 – then compose with the DIN top.
- You want to print on US Letter – then compose with the US top.
- You want to print in the field with your Fuji Instax Wide – then compose with the FIW top.
- The idea is clear — altogether there are 10 tops each for Canon, Leica, Sony, Nikon and Ricoh.
- 1:1 – the original aspect ratio of the Rolleiflex
- 3:2 – Cartier-Bresson's aspect ratio
- 5:4 – Ansel Adams large format
- 4:5 – large format vertical
- 16:9 – for digital media
- FIM – Fuji Instax Mini
- 4:3 – Canon Selphy
Naming convention (Brand, App name, each first 2 consonants)
CN for Canon · CM for Camera Connect
LC for Leica · FT for FOTOS
NK for Nikon · SN for SnapBridge
RC for Ricoh · MG for Image Sync
SN for Sony · CR for Creators' App
What it is not built for
It is slower than the system you already have. For sport, for wildlife, for children running at you — that is not what it is for. zeta9.de is for photography where you take a moment to reflect before you decide.
That's the compromise. You give up speed and you get the frame for your intended output.
One thing to know
The camera records the full sensor area. The top decides what you compose, not what the sensor captures. Every good picture gets post-processed anyway — the tops are centred, so it is one click to crop to the format you chose. Then you can publish or print.
Start your experience here
The XS-G1 base system fits your hot shoe. Your Canon, Leica, Sony, Nikon and/or Ricoh.
If your camera has a hot shoe and can connect to the manufacturer's app in live view on Android 12, it is zeta9.de ready.
Each zeta9.de item costs €48.90 – the carrier – €48.90 – every top – €48.90.
The Soyes XS19Pro is under €80.
For under €180 you can start photographing with zeta9.de – plus shipping and any taxes that apply.
If you would rather not pick the parts yourself, there are preconfigured sets with everything already in the box. One click, and a second one for the smartphone. Once it arrives, usually just a few days, you are ready to go.
Or select what you need
Gaze detection
A waist-level viewfinder changes how people around you react. The response is preconscious. Something resembling an eye, a movement of something resembling a head, a change in posture: signals that were vital to our ancestors' survival. A camera at eye level is all three at once, and anyone who has not unlearned that reaction shifts their posture. Look down into the hood instead and none of it fires. What you get is the relaxed naturalness of unthreatened body language.
The remote display
You can already connect your camera to your smartphone. In bright surroundings that does not really work — in sunlight you cannot see what is on the screen well enough. A hood fixes it. The ground glass of a Rolleiflex was dim too, which is exactly why those cameras had one. It works mounted on the hot shoe, and it works taken off and held in your hand, visible, in blazing sunshine ;)