Okay, first.. This post/rant was inspired by a few tweets from Chase Jarvis. That said, I’m not throwing stones, or trying to start a fight. The topic just got me thinking and I wanted to share my train of thought. Chase, and any other professional who shots tethered, I’m actually jealous. I wish I could shoot tethered.
Read more after the break…
So, the gist of the tweet(s) was about shooting tethered with the Nikon D3x and Aperture on a MacBook. At first I thought "curse you Chase and your justifiable budget for fancy gear cause you’re a professional". But then I thought, isn’t this just the professional expensive version of chimping? If you’ve not heard of chimping, wikipedia has the best description I’ve seen here.
See, since I got my dSLR I’ve been reading a lot around photography communities, forums, and the like. In that time, I’ve been able to gather that "chimping" is considered a weakness, and that "real professionals" don’t do it. I don’t really subscribe to this mentality, afterall the manufacturers put the LCD on the back for a reason right?
I’ve recently shut off the automatic review of photos on my Nikon D80, for a number of reasons. For one, it’s distracting to have the LCD glowing into your eye when you’re shooting a lot of shots in a dark situation, like in our living room at night capturing something our son is doing. Also, the dials on the camera change function when the LCD is on to move back and forth between photographs, and the info that’s overlaid. So if you shoot a shot, and keep the viewfinder to your eye, but try to change the exposure it’s ineffective and you just scroll through the pictures.
That said, when I’m doing anything other than "snap shots" I find myself pushing the play button to see the shot I just took. Needless to say I’d gladly shoot tethered. At the moment I have nothing but Windows and Linux based systems, and I haven’t commited to software for a RAW workflow or other tools that would allow me to shoot tethered, but I can assure you when/if I have all the tools necessary I’ll probably do it too.
So, I say to the critics of chimping… Is tethered shooting really just an expensive version of chimping? Is it "OK" for a professional to shoot tethered, and if so why is it any different than us mere mortals looking at the LCD on the back of our camera? I submit that you are just jealous, like I am so you fabricate reasons that this practice is "bad" and makes you "weak".
Comments?
#1 by Raymond on March 10, 2009 - 2:20 am
The objection to chimping seems to be a) it is a distraction from working with your model etc and b) you’re using it to check for errors you shouldn’t be making in the first place (e.g. exposure).
I can see there is some validity to that, but it is not an absolute thing. When I was shooting the moon I didn’t need to interact with my model and I couldn’t see errors clearly on the tiny LCD and I don’t know enough to work out the right exposure without help.
I don’t see anything wrong with not knowing what you are doing and having to check, isn’t that called learning?
Try tethering — you don’t need a Mac or a D3x to do that. On linux you can use gphoto and on Windows you can use the script I wrote (see my blog).
If you don’t like it you don’t have to do it — it’s a choice right? Just like that immediate LCD preview thing, which I also have turned off. Initially to save battery but now I’m happier with it for basically the same reasons you give.
Raymond