Hipsters and hasselblads

Sirius Glass

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Without the digital revolution I would not have been able to have a 4"x5" Pacemaker Speed Graphic, 4"x5" Graflex Model D, a Jobo processor, full color and black & white darkroom, Hasselblad 903 SWC, Hasselblad Fisheye lens, and many formally expensive lenses.
 

Alan Gales

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Yeah, but it can get obsessive. I've seen some digital photographers scrutinize every single image they have taken before taking another.

If Henri Cartier-Bresson had done that, he probably would have missed the decisive moment while looking at the back of his camera.
 

Cholentpot

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Right on!

In 2004 I was shooting point and shoot disposables. That was literally all I ever shot. I went to school over seas and took a few one time use cameras. For two years! And they lasted me for two years.

I'm now doing things with cameras I couldn't even dream about. Nikon F3 HP with motor drive and flash? Sure, I use it occasionally. Bronica s2? Sure, I take it out a few time a year. Shooting 110? Shoot it? I develop and reload it. Slit my own 4x5 from xray film too once I'm at it. Anamorphic photography? I'm there. With so much at hand why complain about anything?
 

Vaughn

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If missing something while chimping a worry, then as someone else mentioned, one can put it on full-auto and fire at 24 frames per sec or how ever fast those things can go. A lot can happen while one is scratching one's ass, too.

It is just a tool/method -- chimping can't do anything, how it is used is what's important. It can also be a great tool for learning as one goes, if one is interested.

Edited to add -- I so much would like to add "Hamsters" to the title of this thread!!!
 
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Pieter12

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Checking the image on a digital camera display (or tethered monitor) is definitely an advantage and should be used as needed depending on the shooting situation. Chimping is the bad habit of obsessively checking after every shot.

Before digital, I recall many commercial shoots where a Polaroid type 55 was shot and the negative given careful inspection for sharpness before film was shot, as well as snip tests being made before determining if adjustments needed to be made to the final film development.
 

Sirius Glass

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Anything that involves action. Sports, children, street photography, animals. While one is chimping, a lot can happen that won't be repeated.

Also one does not need to chimp if one learns to anticipate the action. This is why good film photographers do not need to chimp and they are used to waiting for the film to be developed.
 

Sirius Glass

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Replace skill with technology.
 

Sirius Glass

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Polaroid was used to check lighting, in particular artificial lighting. Again not chimpin'.
 

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Pieter12

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Before digital, film makers would use video assist to check takes as they were shot and again after, before proceeding. Before video assist, some used video cameras alongside the film camera to do the same.
 

AnselMortensen

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I used to do a lot of auto racing photography, and I have seen first-hand times where photographers have missed a peak-action shot (i.e. crash, banzai pass, etc.) because they were chimpin'.
 

Sirius Glass

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I used to do a lot of auto racing photography, and I have seen first-hand times where photographers have missed a peak-action shot (i.e. crash, banzai pass, etc.) because they were chimpin'.

Please stand up and take a bow. You proved one of my points.
 

grat

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Again. Poor priority management. Checking the shot on auto-racing is a waste of time-- whattya gonna do if you didn't get it? Ask the driver to go back through the corner?

So-called chimping in sports photography is just being stupid.
 

DREW WILEY

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Back to the original post ... I haven't seen any hipsters with Hassies. I have seen old rich fogies stumbling around a short trail at Pt Lobos with a cane and Hassie around the neck, pointing here and there almost randomly, assuming that because they have enough money to live in that neighborhood, and can afford a fancy camera, it makes them the next Edward Weston, who was actually poor and couldn't afford the best gear.
 
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Vaughn

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I used to do a lot of auto racing photography, and I have seen first-hand times where photographers have missed a peak-action shot (i.e. crash, banzai pass, etc.) because they were chimpin'.
Didn't occasionally they get hit because they can't take their eye from the viewfinder? Did not some one mention in another thread that the exceptions prove (test) the rule?
 

grat

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Didn't occasionally they get hit because they can't take their eye from the viewfinder? Did not some one mention in another thread that the exceptions prove (test) the rule?

It's been known to happen that photographers have been hit-- but not because they don't take their eyes off the viewfinder, but because they were in an unprotected area-- or just in the wrong place at the wrong time. At 100+ mph, it doesn't matter whether you see it coming or not. A couple of years ago in Macau, a race car went airborne and slammed into the photography tower backwards, then fell on a marshal-- fortunately, there were no fatalities (although the driver had spinal injuries, she's back racing again).

It's a stupid argument anyway-- professional photographers don't bother checking their replays because they either got the shot or they didn't, whether they're using an EOS-1DX or a Deardorff.

The people who claim "chimpin'" is a hazard of digital cameras remind me of the infomercials where in order to prove a product is useful, they have to film idiots who not only don't know how to use a colander or some other equally simple kitchen implement, but they manage to burn themselves and set fire to the kitchen while draining pasta.

It's disingenuous at best, and just plain insulting. And that ignores the reality that the general public is convinced cell phones are good enough, and those have full-time live view.
 
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