Good subject. I find that I don't chimp too much. To some degree it depends on what I am shooting. When shooting weddings and portraits, I might chimp once in a while, just to verify nothing is grossly wrong, but tend to trust the skills I have picked up from shooting so long. But, if shooting some very high contrast scenes, I might chimp more to verify my thoughts. Anyway, I find chimping to be a tool much like a handheld lightmeter is a tool - I use it to help determine tricky lighting.
-- Best regards, Bruce Tuesday, March 25, 2008, 9:24:09 AM, you wrote: DS> G'day All, DS> Last night I went out to dinner with a bunch of local photogs and we DS> were talking about the differences/advantages/disadvantages between DS> film & digital. The discussion got around to the subject of chimping. DS> One of the guys is a long time working pro, He shares a studio with 3 DS> others and they do commercial photography. He related a story from a DS> recent shoot that I found interesting. DS> He was working with one of his partners on a table top product shoot. DS> They set up the camera (5D) , lights, metered the scene & worked out DS> the lighting ratios together. He started shooting. He went away for a DS> while & his partner started chimping the shots already taken & came to DS> the conclusion that based on the histogram the shots were over DS> exposed, even though he had helped set up the lighting. DS> As a result of this chimping -1.5 stops of exposure compensation were DS> dialed in. The next day the guy I was talking with started the post DS> processing. And guess what. They were all (200 odd exposures) DS> underexposed. By 1.5 stops. DS> Now his theory was that chimping is a symptom of people: DS> a) not trusting their own skill DS> b) not trusting this new fangled digital technology. DS> Personally I think that the guy who was chimping either had the in DS> camera settings wrong or he doesn't know how to read a histogram. DS> (I've never met him or seen his work so I can't really make a comment DS> on his technical acumen.) DS> I am a chimper, I do it even when I don't need to & it's a habit I DS> have been working on breaking for some time. When I was shooting film DS> I'd take maybe 2 or 3 frames of a subject & move on, but I find myself DS> in this digital age fooling around with my camera & fiddeling with DS> exposure settings, Maybe it's just me, but from waht I seen of others DS> "in the field" I don't think so. DS> I found this idea of a correlation between chimping & trust quite DS> interesting, so I thought I'd throw this out for comment & discussion. DS> Cheers, DS> Dave -- PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List [email protected] http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net to UNSUBSCRIBE from the PDML, please visit the link directly above and follow the directions.
