terry44 Loc: Tuolumne County California, Maui Hawaii

Exactly

JuxtaposePictures Loc: San Diego

I'm not sure what you mean by squirm and wiggle and exceptions. Maybe you've never done event photography and that's fine. Different techniques work better for different types of photography. For event (and sports) photography you can't ask the subject to redo the moment. Capturing the right moment and getting it exposed well are what matters. For the posed shots of the bride and groom, details, etc, chimp all you want but when the action starts you as a photographer have to know your equipment so that using it is second nature and the moment is everything. Taking your eye away from your subject will cause you to lose important shots.

Kori Evans Loc: Illinois

Instant gratification.. absolutely not. Instant gratification is taking a cell phone shot of the back of your camera and posting it to social media! Lol!
I never thought about it, but I do it a lot. Mainly with children because they tend to be natural and move around too much.
Also I do it to make sure I've framed up the image well.

Apaflo Loc: Anchorage, Alaska

I get the feeling that your experience in Event photography, as far as diversity and probably time too, land close to where I might have been 20 or mote years ago. Not at all insignificant! But after learning the ropes one adds sophistication... lots of it. That could also just be a difference in ability to adapt to the world of digital.

Regardless, please pay more attention to the details in my articles, and less to what you expect to hear.

Kori Evans Loc: Illinois

LOL!!!

Bob Werre

Depending on the situation, I generally carried an extra 35mm camera with a Polaroid back (expensive) to check as many elements as possible. In the studio I even shot 8 x 10 Polaroids, 4 x 5 Polaroids, 2 x 2 Polaroids plus the 35mm stuff. Sometimes we'd shoot for hours before bringing in the film. Often an art director would want to see things done several ways so in the end client would have a choice. The Polaroids for 35mm/ 2x2 film-669 would take 90 seconds to process, so things went fast compared to reshooting film, but slower than today's digital previews! What a change. Polaroids were fairly expensive but I also made a fair amount of cash with the markups--Polaroid and Fuji/Kodak films were a nice profit center for any photographer who was shooting for a client--not so much if your shooting for yourself!

JuxtaposePictures Loc: San Diego

Oh no I love digital. It's why I prefer shooting my micro four thirds cameras with an evf over my Nikon or Pentax cameras without. I get the benefit of the histogram all the time without having to take my eyes away from the subject. Also, to reiterate. I don't think there is anything wrong with reviewing images on your rear screen, it's just the practice of chimping I think is problematic. But hey, if it works for you go for it.

You are right about when I started though. It was probably about 25 years ago on 35mm and 120 film but even though I still have film cameras I haven't done an entire shoot with one for around ten years now.

John_F Loc: Minneapolis, MN

It seems to me that wedding photography is a just one chance to capture the action. On the bride garter toss - no repeats. So why chimp - to double check on settings maybe.

Apaflo Loc: Anchorage, Alaska

Yep! Good example. Take a couple of scene shots as they start to get ready, and definitely chimp! Have the camera in high speed continuous mode and at every moment that appears to be "The Decisive Moment" shoot a short burst. Only chimp the bursts if it is clearly an idle second, and don't even think about actually evaluating any of the exposures.

Gene51 Loc: Yonkers, NY, now in LSD (LowerSlowerDelaware)

Two "old days" anecdotes. Working with large format, I used to have several Polaroid film backs to judge and fine tune lighting, focus, back and front standard adjustments (swings and tilts) and exposure. I would not commit to using a sheet of film until I was satisfied with everything.

Also, chimping is a very rough (and much more accurate) replacement for the hand-held exposure meter - which we would all check nervously, at least until in-camera meters went into vogue with the Nikon Ftn and the Pentax Spotmatic.

So no, chimping is not unprofessional - in fact it is very professional in that it helps the photographer ensure that the client is getting the very best.

Anyone who shoots weddings knows that chimping is a luxury that is not always possible. You can chimp ahead of time with a test exposure, but if you don't get the first kiss, the moms and dads handing their daughters over, the bouquet toss, etc - there is no possibility of a do-over. You have to nail EVERYTHING on the one and only try for each of the important moments.

Gene51 Loc: Yonkers, NY, now in LSD (LowerSlowerDelaware)

Correct! viewfinder gives you focus confirmation, ISO (if using AutoISO), shutter speed, aperture, and if you use spot meter mode, you can read the highlights and place the exposure needle where it needs to be to either avoid blown highlights, or you can make a decision about how much blown highlight you are willing to compromise on. If you use the spot meter to measure the entire scene you can accurately determine the contrast range of the shot, and whether it will be helped by shooting it as an HDR stack. My exposures are generally pretty good, and with the natural subjects I shoot, I check the LCD more to confirm there was no subject (or photographer) movement and that the eye is perfectly focused, that to judge exposure.

Gene51 Loc: Yonkers, NY, now in LSD (LowerSlowerDelaware)

Very important. But since I started telling people to keep their eyes closed until I finished counting to three, I get very few closed eyes and a bunch of very natural smiles. However, event and portrait photography is not my thing.

sammie15 Loc: Michigan

When I took photographs years ago that were film I didn't have the ability to review a shot I just took. Couldn't wait to get them developed to see how they turned out. Nice to know what "chimping" is. Now with DSLR if I'm not sure of setting or result, I'll chimp as you say. But really even then, not sure how it looks. If you do a burst of shots you can't obviously. I'm not sure why that is considered unprofessional. Chimp away!.

amfoto1 Loc: San Jose, Calif. USA

It depends... In some situations, I've seen photographers "chimping" so much that they were actually missing a lot of the action. But it's essential in other situations, to check that you "got the shot". A wedding is a good example, but even then I'd say it depends upon whether one is shooting candid shots in a fast-moving situation you can't control, where chimping probably costs more shots than it saves... versus shooting planned and posed shots that you MUST get correct and should chimp to check frequently.

I deliberately set my cameras to NOT playback every shot. I don't want the distraction or to be tempted to chimp a lot. (It also saves a lot of battery power, preventing each and every image from displaying on the LCD, which is a power hog.)

I do have my cameras set up so that I can recall any particular image quickly and easily with either right or left thumb. Most of the time that's to inspect the histogram, sometimes to confirm composition or to magnify the image to inspect focus accuracy. I DO NOT use the image replay for other close inspection of the image, because the image isn't calibrated and the LCD screen is highly influenced by ambient light conditions. That's why the histogram is much more informative about exposure and color balance, contrast etc. can't really be judged from the image playback. It's really only useful to check composition and, in a more limited way, focus accuracy. When shooting with any of the auto exposure modes, I also use the info that accompanies the image playback to review shutter speed, aperture, etc., watching for any wildly incorrect settings (which sometimes occur when the camera gets bumped) and making fine adjustments "on the fly". And, for certain shooting situations I make regular notes of the camera time, for quicker reference later when I'm sorting and editing several thousand images in post-processing.

skylinefirepest Loc: Southern Pines, N.C.

Instant gratification? Absolutely NOT! I do fire-rescue photography and provide photos to insurance companies, attorneys, law enforcement, etc. So I check my shots frequently to make sure I got the skid marks, gouge marks, road markings, signs, etc. properly. A percentage of my stuff ends up in court so it has to be right!! I am not a professional photographer in the usual sense of the word...however when a state trooper gets a workup of a wreck scene from me he knows it's going to show everything he needs to work with when he goes to court. So in that sense I am a professional...just not paid for my work except through the satisfaction of taking a drunk driver off the road or helping a family to get a just settlement.