Chimping

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Comments

  • snakebunksnakebunk Posts: 993Member
    can't see what's wrong with checking how the picture came out. One of the big benefits of digital photography i should say, the instant ability to correct mistakes.

    For all those who don't approve, may I suggest the M-A, so you can also look down on those who need a battery or still are amateurish enough to use a light meter... :-D
    For me it is wrong when I miss a photograph because I look at the view finder.

    I anyone is looking down on you because of how you photograph you can be sure it is a silly person. But I don't think you will find a lot of them here.
  • sevencrossingsevencrossing Posts: 2,800Member
    edited July 2015
    Chimping is a colloquial term used in digital photography to describe the habit of checking every photo on the camera display (LCD) immediately after capture.

    check from time to time is not Chimping
    Post edited by sevencrossing on
  • paulrpaulr Posts: 1,176Member
    can't see what's wrong with checking how the picture came out. One of the big benefits of digital photography i should say, the instant ability to correct mistakes.

    For all those who don't approve, may I suggest the M-A, so you can also look down on those who need a battery or still are amateurish enough to use a light meter... :-D

    I Think you will find a lot of Professional Photograhers still use Light/exposure meters and colour meters to get total Subject and Ambient light information.The problem is, a lot of modern photographers would not know how to use one.

    Camera, Lens and Tripod and a few other Bits
  • DaveyJDaveyJ Posts: 1,090Member
    A photo magazine quite a while back had a "contest" between a pro photographer and a chimp. For a month the two contestants were issued a DSLR. The pro photographer NEVER checked the images in playback. The chimp became very fond of the playbacks. When the month was over the editors reviewed the results of the pro photographer and the chimp. To everyone's surprise it seemed the chimp had produced better, more artistic results. During playback events the chimp was particularly fond of watching images of himself!

    The editors wondered if the chimp had gained expertise and a concept of the whole photography thing partly by playing back the images. Soon the practice of playing back the images became referred to as "chimping" The rest is history. Chimping is actually very good in that the approximately right exposure and composition and focus can be checked. The chimp enjoyed looking at a 'slideshow" and that slideshow became much of his reason to go out and collect more images and formed a wonderful source of enjoyment. The editors wondered if there was not some profound elements of visualization involved and they also were quite certain the chimp was not looking at the taken images to check histograms!
  • spraynprayspraynpray Posts: 6,545Moderator
    You are a wag Davey! ;)
    Always learning.
  • Rx4PhotoRx4Photo Posts: 1,200Member
    To everyone's surprise it seemed the chimp had produced better, more artistic results.
    This is what stands out for me in this. Not everyone has an equally artistic vision - and it does pay to look to see what's turning up. Even pros who tether to a PC are basically chimping - just with higher technology.

    D800 | D7000 | Nikkor 14-24mm f/2.8 | 24-70mm f/2.8 | 70-200mm f/2.8 | 35mm f/1.8G | 85mm f/1.4G | Sigma 35mm f/1.4 Art | Sigma 50mm f/1.4 Art | Sigma 50mm f/1.4 EX DG HSM | Zeiss 100mm Makro-Planar ZF.2 | Flash controllers: Phottix Odin TTL

  • WestEndFotoWestEndFoto Posts: 3,742Member
    To everyone's surprise it seemed the chimp had produced better, more artistic results.
    This is what stands out for me in this. Not everyone has an equally artistic vision - and it does pay to look to see what's turning up. Even pros who tether to a PC are basically chimping - just with higher technology.

    That is a great point.
  • DaveyJDaveyJ Posts: 1,090Member
    I have got quite a bit of email about this post. But on my personal email not Nikon Rumors. Some who emailed me had some very good points from the Chimps in Space, Florida Chimp Sanctuary, or Primate Research. I would prefer these comments be posted on Nikon Rumors as they are interesting observations and/or findings. Ham and a number of other chimps were way better at taking "selfies" of themselves than a human. Their arms are longer and considerably more adept at what might be an awkward hand or holding motion. Human hands have shown no more than a tiny amount of change in 6 million years. Chimp hands and Orangutan hands have changed quite a bit in the same time. I have noticed a large amount of variance in attention of animals even within a species to say TV. Some cats ignore the screen. Others will chase images, some dogs ignore the screens and others will even show preference for certain kinds of shows.

    The chimps I have seen and in videos by others tend to use the playback mode quite a bit after a photo shoot. They also checked the screen now and then to see what had been recorded. Chimps seem to favor images of other primates are at least animals compared to scenery. Also I would note that the charge that chimping means checking each recorded photo in playback did not occur by the observation of any researcher or casual observers. I would suggest that it is up to the user to decide for themselves how much or little they make use of this DSLR feature. Finally it does seem to have a lot more than a modest amount of value to check the images after taking especially a particular kind of lighting that may require tweaking.
  • kenadamskenadams Posts: 222Member
    Paulr, that's just my point. Doesn't matter where exactly the light meter resides, they're using one, because it simply makes sense.
  • DaveyJDaveyJ Posts: 1,090Member
    back in my large and medium format days I owned a variety of really good light meters and knew how to use them. I ALSO used a 35mm camera and took data off that meter as well. I finally BAILED when I discovered that the 35mm images were often the ones that got the most use, especially for MY OWN USE. Advertisers I admit liked the big stuff. That was FILM though and the playback stuff on the DSLR allows very fast results on do we have a crop failure? Or is this really just about right. Being wrong on an exposure on 8x10, 11x14, and bigger as well as the threat that a reshoot might be needed...checking images and exposure on say a D810 is fast and efficient. If I don't check the results on the LCD screen I often don't have a good enough idea if I need to plus or minus something, etc. Another huge factor is that the light metering on the DSLRs is very good. I found spot metering to be slow and in changing outdoor settings, not very useful. In a studio with great big light banks a quite different situation.
  • paulrpaulr Posts: 1,176Member
    I thought this was Chimping till I read this Forum

    chimp

    Author Unknown
    Camera, Lens and Tripod and a few other Bits
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